I feel like shit. I keep getting really depressed. I'm taking my ADHD medicine, it's not getting any better. I don't feel confident applying for jobs at all and feel absolutely worthless. This ADHD completely ruined my life and continues to do so. I'm never going to be anything.
Will you be following up with your doctor soon? There are a litany of other medications that you can try!
I don't know what to do. I keep thinking about making an appointment with my gp to see what he says. Should I skip the gp and just find a therapist or what?
A GP will be able to provide medication but that's about it. A therapist and psychiatrist will offer more specialized care in talk therapy and medication, respectively. Sometimes there is some overlap between the two.
I urge you to keep calling, and leave messages! Therapists and psychiatrists almost never answer the phone because they're in sessions all day long and probably don't get enough phone calls to justify having a dedicated receptionist. If you leave them a message with your info and ask if they're accepting new patients they should get back to you within a few days.
The therapist who DID answer was likely waiting for a phone call from a patient for a phone appointment, picked up thinking you were him, then needed to get you off of the line quickly so when the patient called it wasn't busy. Or at least, that's my guess.
As you said, ERs sadly aren't the best place for mental health care, though some are better than others. An ER that is attached to a larger mental health ward might actually have a mental health practitioner available all the time whereas a smaller set up might be limited to just emergency management.
Hang in there Bree, there are a lot of resources available to you. Your insurer's website is a good place to start, they often provide a list of covered providers within an x mile radius. Alternatively your GP may be able to provide you with referrals.
A lot of it spawns when I'm at work and spills over when I'm home. Nothing that sticks out as a trigger, I just feel overwhelmed and out of sorts. I have been with the company since 2000 and was promoted to assistant manager in 08 so I am familiar with my job. I feel I have gone down so far it's hard to get back to where I was before. Certain times I feel like banging my head against the wall out of frustration and while I don't have suicidal thoughts, I feel if I was hit by a car I wouldn't care.
Well, my next questions would be overwhelmed by what, and out of sorts how? Once you've got a stronger ID on what factors are contributing to your suffering you're better able to modify your life to mitigate those factors. If you're interested in pursuing it, talk therapy is built to explore these questions. Alternatively, you can also make a lot of progress with personal reflection.
It's important to keep in mind that medication is symptom relief; it won't take away bad days and it won't fix all of your problems. It's just there to make sure that when things
are bad they're at least much more bearable. That being said, if you're still losing the will to live than perhaps the medication isn't yet filling in all the gaps you want it to, though it may just need more time. If you're not happy with your medication, be sure to bring it up with your doctor.
I hope things look up in the next few days SevenDevils. Please let us know if there's anything we can do.
I'm really sorry you're suffering so heavily, Fish. Please let us know if there's anything we can do. Vent, PM, ask questions, whatever.
I hope things are looking up, at least slightly.
I guess I got the job at jcpenney since I have an orientation tomorrow. Seriously, I did horrible on that interview and I managed to get the job. I should be happy but for some reason I'm not. It's as if I don't want to work at all. I've mentioned this before that I've hated working at retail. But I tell myself that a job is a job. I just don't know why I feel concerned? I don't mind communicating, I just don't like getting to know customers just to make sales. There are things I can't do like answering customers questions since I don't know the answers to their questions and I don't want to give them wrong answers. I hate macy's and never want to work there ever again. Lets see how jcpenney is, and hope their training is effective. I don't plan on working there for very long when I come back to school. Even if I have time to work after school, I'm not going to have time to work on homework or studying for exams. Will see how this job goes. Expect me to post here a lot based off my frustration with customers.
Not yet. I will though once I see what my schedule is like. But I'm not sure if I'm going to work there very long since I applied for a part-time and they might let me go. On the other hand, they could keep me if I do a great job working there. However, I'm more worried about time since I want more time with homework and studying. My classes are going to be hard. I spoke with an adviser at the CS department about where I stand in this major. He told me about this CS class I'm going to take this fall that would be difficult. He suggested me to not overwhelm myself with other classes because of projects we're going to have in that class. I'm taking 4 classes this fall. Imagine how overwhelming it would be for me to work along with taking 4 classes. If I could rearrange my availability, it would be working at Monday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
First of all, congratulations on the job! I'm so glad to hear that you got it
I must say I'm really struck by how quickly you've bent this fantastic success into feeling like a total, hopeless failure, or a disaster waiting to happen. It's only June; you've got plenty of time before the fall to figure out how your job will interface with your classes, and the answer will likely be clearer once you start the job and it's no longer an unknown!
Do you encounter such catastrophic thinking regularly?
Also, have you considered seeking therapy?
Hmm, anyway, I hardly recognize half of my ramblings afterwards. I had another appointment yesterday. I couldn't really convey any of that. I just did my routine whining. I should probably try writing it out. It's actually much easier for me to be honest and transparent in a foreign language - for some reason I'm very inhibited in my mother tongue. But I don't think English sessions would be feasible either.
Regarding success, being "late" to it (and life in general) isn't even my greatest fear. What I mean is that I'm in the age where my true nature and incompetence is finally revealed. This post from the "I'm too good" thread hits close to home:
I was never good, the challenges presented to me were just easy. Real life's responsibilities and hardships are a painful revelation. I don't think I will ever be able to accept that life. And that's the bottom line really. I reject life as it is, I can't handle it. Never could, but it's just dawning on me now.
I would really encourage you to write out what you want to say in advance of your next appointment; it helps me tremendously.
I think you may be overestimating the quality of everyone else's upbringing. Everyone's childhood and upbringing had deficiencies and part of adulthood is exploring those shortcomings and catching up on what you've missed. While this can be frustrating and demoralizing it definitely isn't hopeless; rather, we are often able to pick up skills more quickly and concretely as adults than we were as children. I still maintain that at your age it is far from too late to catch up on what you feel you may have lacked in your personal growth thus far.
You also mention that it is painful. I have had similar thoughts. I don't understand how the anyone could ever expect me to cope with the painful, chaotic, uncaring universe, and live through the endless hurt it brings me. Yet that's the value of therapy. A therapist can help you work through
why those experiences are so painful and how to mitigate that pain in the future.
I promise you it isn't hopeless.
Wellbutrin isn't really working for me. Though I have to say I haven't been taking it properly. I usually take it for a week, then stop for a couple for days and so on.
You really need to take it every day for a while to get an idea of how it's going to affect you. If you've been forgetting, check out the app I linked below.
Edit: Speaking of bad memory, I really hope I'm not just forgetting that I did take it. I'd be in for some pretty hardcore side effects if I accidentally took an extra 20mg of Escitalopram...
After a few particularly dramatic medicine screw ups I started using
an app to check off when I've taken my medication.
They're trying to set me up with someone. But I heard that last year so this time, I'm going to be on top of them more. The curse of Medicaid. Any insight you have to offer on the joys of therapy would be appreciated. I mean, it can't be harder than Dark Souls, right?
Any insights I have about the joys of therapy?? Hmm...
Therapy is about the relationship between therapist and patient.
Also, therapy will require you to be uncomfortable.
That's all I've got for now. Further bulletins as events warrant.
After a while I got into this sort of groove with Dark Souls where it was hard, sure, but it didn't bother me and I knew that if I kept chipping away at it I'd come out on top eventually. I'm still working on having that attitude toward my life. It goes in and out.
<3