Depressed and sad

Hi Greeneye,

I do hope you're feeling better and that you do give other therapies a try as it does help.

My question is about the aggressive and irritable feelings you mentioned in your first post.. Are you still dealing with those? My story is very similar to yours, in fact I thought I was reading my own story! I have also attributed my aggressive and irritable feelings to sertraline and have come off it. But now I feel low and am struggling to cope with the low mood and I'm still aggressive and irritable.

Have you found anything to help with the irritability? Perhaps it is just a symptom of the depression? As I know that I feel very annoyed at not functioning well and I'm sure the irritability may just be a symptom but it's still not very nice because the people I'm being irritable with are those closest to me and I don't like hurting them any more.

Have you found that going back on sertraline has helped with the irritability or just the low mood? thanks for any help

Hiya Kiki25, hope u dont mind my imput here but I too have found the irritability a real problem (well I havent but I am aware I also take it out of my closest ,my hubby, ) and although he copes really well, probably better than I do, I have beeen told my my psychiatrist that its thre depression ratherr than my medication. I am nt on sertraline now but whatever medication I am on, I still have irrational irritability which I can control to a certina degree with many people but it has to come out somewhere.

Hope you doing ok, I thought greeneyed initial story was mine too- helps alittle knowing it seems a common problem but doesnt in a way that I wnt to sort it and cant !!

Take care

Hi Coggy and hi to Kiki - I'm interested to hear about your experiences of irritability on Sertraline. I was more than irritable a lot of last year I was positively angry a lot of the time and wanting to lash out at times. My husband got the worst of it. I don't know whether to put all, some or none of it down to Setraline or whether it was down to life issues. Frustration at not having enought work to do at work, not wanting to be at work in the first place and also worries about my 85 year old father who lives alone all contributed.. I'm an only child so all his problems fall to me and he had a bit of a bad year and tends to go on and on about his many illnesses. Sorry to sound unsympathetic to him but you can get compassion overload sometimes.

Anyway, the anger and irritability went away December to March while i was off sertraline so i convinced myself it must have been down to them - still don't know if that was right but of course i paid the price for coming off it so recklessly as the depression and new panic attacks kicked in. I've only been back on Sertraline a fortnight or so so it's too soon to tell what will happen. My doctor didn't seem to think the anger was down to Sertraline but it does specifically mention this in the leaflet in the box so if the anger comes back i'm not sure what i'll do as Sertraline does agree with me on other levels.

I'm doing well except first thing in the morning when i wake up and lie in bed getting anxious about how i'll pull myself together to get ready for a days work when i do go back. At present i can take my time and do things as i want but the normal work morning is a bit of a mad rush and i hate getting up anyway. I'm not a morning person at all!

Must go now, i shouldn't be computing this late at night. Enjoying corresponding with you all.

shall i finish with a bit of a funny? there's a storyline in Coronation 'Street at the moment, which you may or may not watch, which involves a lapdancing club which the residents are of course dead against. My dad tries to take an interest in what i'm watching and asked me what this storyline was about. I told him about the lapdancing club and he said of course they wouldnt want that. then there was a short silence and he said actually i don't know what goes on in a lapdancing club. I said, dad, I'd rather not try to explain it to you!

Hi Coggy and Greenye,

Thanks for your replies, and Greeneye your story did make me chuckle so thank you, it is difficult for me to laugh at the moment!.

If you wouldn't mind telling me, how do or have you dealt with the irritability? It's my partner also and my sister who lives with us who get the brunt of it, which obviously makes you feel worse doesn't it? Such a vicious circle!

My partner deals with it better than my sister, but it's got to the point now where my it is upsetting my partner too. He's pretty laid back and not much upsets him so seeing as it is upsetting him, I know it's pretty bad. It's hard to try and deal with it constructively when it just makes you feel worse and actually makes me feel angrier with myself, which isn't going to help. My sister did say to me that I need to stop feeling angry with myself or with someone else, but instead be angry with the 'situation' so I am going to try and do that to avoid blaming myself or others, but it's hard when it's been a habit of a lifetime.

About the Sertraline, I did attribute it to the sertraline, I read the leaflet too and since I've been on another medication and not experienced such extreme irritability, I thought it must be the sertraline. But now I'm off it, I'm still irritable, so it must just be the depression. Obviously I need to look deep within to try and figure out why I'm angry, but, more than anything, I need to try and find ways of dealing with the irritability and anger.

Baaaah!

Hi Kiki - i don't think i do handle the irritability much at all, so no help there I'm afraid! I'm irritated by lots of things quite easily so i think it's a personality thing. Your sister's advice seems very good and i've heard of that one before so must try and remember it myself too. What is it that triggers the irritability? Any specific examples, or is it just anything and everything like i've experienced before.

if you're feeling angry as a stress release it's ok to give yourself a release by putting a pillow over your face and screaming into it or punching something inanimate like a cushion. Sounds weird but the pillow one did help me a bit during one of my panic atttacks. I warned my husband beforehand what i was going to do then went into the outhouse away from neighbours. Of course you need somewhere quiet to do it where the neighbours won't think a murder is going on.

by the way, i'm by no means out of the woods yet myself. I've woken up each morning this week feeling anxious and with very mild panic. Coming right down off the Diazepam now and must be right off it soon so it probably coincides with that. I've now got it into my head that at 59 (and husband 65) I've wasted so much of our life together feeling depressed etc that there's not much time left to become a happy person. Once i'm up and about i improve and i've had some good times with friends recently but it's difficult to start the day feeling like that.

best wishes