coooode:

And that’s the most frustrating thing about depression. It isn’t always something you can fight back against with hope. It isn’t even something — it’s nothing. And you can’t combat nothing. You can’t fill it up. You can’t cover it. It’s just there, pulling the meaning out of everything. That being the case, all the hopeful, proactive solutions start to sound completely insane in contrast to the scope of the problem.

It would be like having a bunch of dead fish, but no one around you will acknowledge that the fish are dead. Instead, they offer to help you look for the fish or try to help you figure out why they disappeared. 
(x)

You know when you read something that’s so accurate that you don’t know how to words?
Yeah.

(via beccabeargrr)

repetition-is-holy:

In a humiliating blow to the American Psychiatric Association, Thomas R. Insel, M.D., Director of the NIMH, made clear the agency would no longer fund research projects that rely exclusively on DSM criteria. Henceforth, the NIMH, which had thrown its weight and funding behind earlier editions of the manual, would be “re-orienting its research away from DSM categories.” “The weakness” of the manual, he explained in a sharply worded statement, “is its lack of validity.” “Unlike our definitions of ischemic heart disease, lymphoma, or AIDS, the DSM diagnoses are based on a consensus about clusters of clinical symptoms, not any objective laboratory measure nsensus is now clearly missing. Whether it ever really existed remains in doubt. As one consultant for DSM-III conceded to the New Yorker magazine about the amount of horsetrading driving that supposedly “evidenced-based” edition from 1980: “There was very little systematic research, and much of the research that existed was really a hodgepodge—scattered, inconsistent, ambiguous.”

According to Insel, too much of that problem remains. As he cautionedof a manual whose precision and reliability has been overstated for decades, “While DSM has been described as a ‘Bible’ for the field, it is, at best, a dictionary, creating a set of labels and defining each.” And not even a particularly good dictionary, apparently. Of the decision to steer research in mental health away from the manual and its parameters, Insel states: “Patients with mental disorders deserve better.”

It’s been a while since a meds post, and for the first time I feel like we’re really getting somewhere.

• 100 mg Amitriptyline
• 1 mg Clonazepam
• 30 mg Propanolol
• 150 mg Lamictal

I’ve been on the Amitriptyline for a bit over a year now.  I didn’t notice a lot of effects solely from this med.  It also gives me tremors, which are not ideal.  We are discussing tapering off this medication, but not until I’ve transitioned out of college and am stable.

The clonazepam doesn’t seem to do as much for me as it does for other people.  It’ll knock me out if I’m dangerously worked up, but only in fairly high doses.  I usually take it at night before I go to sleep rather than during the day.

The propranolol has been the surprise success.  It is a beta blocker that is sometimes used to treat anxiety.  Usually, it’s a cardiac med.  Since I have an unexplained heart condition due to my genetic disorder (Ehlers-danlos syndrome), my resting pulse is about 125 bpm.  One day on this medication and it was 80 bpm.  I feel SO different with this medication.  Physically, my anxiety response just isn’t as strong.  It allows me to stop myself from getting physically cranked up for anxiety.  I feel infinitely better during my day when I am on this medication.

The other resounding success is the Lamictal.  It’s the first medication that I have been on for bipolar depression, not just depression.  Previously, I had been on every SSRI currently on the market, and the tricyclic amitriptyline.  This medication was a bit of a long-shot because it’s an epilepsy drug that was recently approved to treat the depression part of bipolar 2.  I don’t have that as a definitive diagnosis, but since no other antidepressants had worked for me, we decided to give it a try despite the possible severe side effects.  I have noticed a very perceptible shift in my mood.  My energy level is up, my outlook is much more positive.  I get anxious about things, but instead of becoming lethargic and paralyzed  I get things done.  I am much less fearful of change and much less focused on making decisions based on comfort rather than desire.  I am much less troubled by disordered thoughts and I have been able to move forward in therapy.  I am so glad that my psychiatrist was willing to look for other medication options when others had not.

I just finished my last day of college classes!  I can’t believe I made it here!

(Source: onlinecounsellingcollege, via we-wa)

Most of my friends try to understand and make me feel better but there’s nothing like a friend from treatment to rub your arm and say what you need to hear.  I hadn’t even been realizing how unheard and uncomforted I felt until I got that back.

(Source: hypocritelecteuse, via stophatingyourbody)

Correcting source <3

(Source: anatomy-of-recovery, via valeur--reprise)

(Source: allcameundonethemomentyoumeantit, via thebonepalaceballet)

(Source: nowherefinerthancarolina, via recoveryislovely)