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Coping with stress during Major Depressive Disorder Episode

Posted , 7 users are following.

elizabeth112
elizabeth112

I hope someone on the forum can identify with my issues and suggest some coping strategies. I experience  recurrent bouts of Major Depressive Disorder,  and a couple of times per year on average during the past ten years have been subject to episodes during which I have suicidal thoughts and become unable to function- mini breakdowns- all of which occur after I've had some extra-stressful period with family problems.  I  have been prescribed  drugs for my Depression and Anxiety which I've been taking on a permanent basis during that time, but despite having had numerous sessions of CBT and even EMDR, I find it is impossible for me to cope with what, for most people, would be relatively normal stress levels without plunging into another very deep gulf of depression. Can anyone offer any advice on how I might improve how I am handling situations and preventing these extremely bad episodes from happening so often/lasting so long-usually from 3-8 weeks at a time, please?

5 likes, 6 replies

6 Replies

  • mike09523
    mike09523 elizabeth112

    Posted

    Hi Elizabeth, 

    Could there be an underlying episode in your past which you have not fully come to terms with. Sometimes, especially if we were very young, we bury these memories and don't confront them for many years, by which time only parts surface.

    I am of course using my own experiences here, and I could be way off target.

    Mike

    • mark77234
      mark77234 mike09523

      Posted

      Hi Mike has I feel like Elizabeth I hope like her to be able to cope with all these things I have gone through my life over and over again thinking ware it could of started and my anxiety attacks really come from yes as a teenager with me but as a man you don't show it to others or talk about it feelings that is but this hasn't made any difference with me?

  • elizabeth112
    elizabeth112

    Posted

    My son committed suicide in 2000, and I've never really got over that trauma. I was told I probably had PTSD a few years after that,  and I had EMDR 2 years ago,  but it didn't work at all. I have always suffered anxiety and got depressed, but my depression definitely got much worse when my son died, and the really severe anxiety/depression spells have been happening regularly since 2000, despite lots of CBT and counselling interventions. It's difficult to get to consult anyone on my local Mental Health team without having a very long wait, and, although I have, in the past, seen a private psychiatrist for medication advice, I'm afraid that, as a retired person, I can't afford to pay for any long term psychological therapy at his clinic, so I'm dependent on the NHS provision, unfortunately.

  • mark77234
    mark77234 elizabeth112

    Posted

    Hi Elizabeth at last i'am not the only one who feel like it like me I have tried to keep going but I live by myself with no one else I don't have any heart left in anything no more I've talked and talked to these people who should have some answers my question is how it all came about you seemed to have that so I wish you all the best and more you can come out of it.😆

    • elizabeth112
      elizabeth112 mark77234

      Posted

      None of the many counsellors etc. I've seen has ever been able to explain to me "how it all came about"- either the mental illness from which I personally suffer, nor the real causes/motivations of my son's decision to take his own life, Mark. I doubt anyone actually has "answers" to these things (though many practitioners make out they do, when one first consults them. This I find very frustrating and it makes me angry that they do that! However, other people I've talked to have been more realistic, saying they can't offer me "cures" or "solutions" just advice on how to "manage" my anxiety/depression and try to live through these awful bleak periods. I'm currently trying my best to do that (and not doing very well!) and still have a slight hope (lessening daily) I can come out of it this time and carry on with this incurable problem.

       

  • mike09523
    mike09523 elizabeth112

    Posted

    Hi,

    There are no miricle cures for the loss of a loved one, no amount of therapy will block out the memories of a lost child. Only you can find a way of coping. Some turn to religion-others to socialising with like minded people. I don't know how I would cope, the suggestion by my "trick cyclist",that I go away and put all my baggage behind me and live my life for today was not much help but perhaps he found it worked for others!!!

    I can only wish you find peace and perhaps somehow a closure .

    Mike.

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