h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yes, this would be a bad weekend for that, JEllen. I have the two words "White Rose" pencilled on my calendar for this day, didn't know how to say anything about it though. Wish I had time for a proper chat today. It's Mother's Day today, not a hapy day for me, either, but I am forgoing the deprssion today in favor of a bit of celebration of my own life, for which I am very grateful and which I am enjoying quite a bit!

I'm listening to Enya. Sail away, sail away, sail away...

Yay, PC, you go girl!

Oooh, Enya is good stuff! I especially love "Boadicea", "Only Time", and "wild Child". Sounds like you've got the right soundtrack for a lovely, relaxing day!

I hope you're doing okay, and would like a chat one night this week?

Yes, let's aim for Tues or Wed. See ya then. (It is fun talking on a lot of threads at once, isn't it? LOL)

Hey Ellen thanks for telling me that its's called mixed-state depression! I didn't know they recognised that. But strange it should be called a kind of 'depression' when what it is, is depression as well as a bunch of other stuff. They might perhaps more suitably call it 'scrambled mood disorder' or something like that. But thanks anyways!

Yes, thanks for letting us know the "proper" terminology for mixed-state depression. It is helpful to know, I didn't really realize that a person could experience both things at once. That much be horribly exhausting!

I'll look out for you Tues. or Wed. evening, then, JEllen. And yes, it sure is fun talking on lots of threads at once!

I was in a horrible "mixed state" two years ago so I know what that's about. In fact I'm comeing up on the second anniversary of my own breakdown. I was diagnosed bipolar officially just a year ago now, but I'm beginning to wonder if I'm really bipolar of if I just had a classic "nervous breakdown". I want to do some research on the nervous breakdowns of the 70's. I remember hearing about them when I was little. I wonder what people who have the same type of thing happen to them now get diagnosed with. I don't mind the anniversary so much. I have a friend who worries that I will be triggered somehow at this time of year but no such thing happened last year and I'm not too worried about it this year. Thanks to Paxil, I'm sure my anxiety about it would be increased and maybe triggering if I weren't on such drugs.

Hi JEllen, just catching up on stuff. Have read this, it seems a shame that you are having to wait another month, but at least it is soon.

I do not have much experience with medication like this. I was put on a very low dose of amitriptyline for my vulval vestibulitis, I wanted it to work as it would help with the depression of not being able to have sex, as well as deaden the nerves which were causing the pain. It was meant to be a dose that would have no effect on me, apart from that. It made me psychotic I think. I couldn't sleep or rest, or read or walk down the street without being in constant fight mode. Moonglum took me to the local shops and I felt very unsafe, very out of control etc etc. I came off it and a therapist I was seeing said such a low dose couldn't affect me like that so I must have been making it up.

I have always reacted very strongly to medication, I can feel paracetamol hiting my system, its like taking dope. And the effect of nurofen plus, sends me skyward!

Its great you have a good doctor, who seems to help you and be on your side. Stay with that.

As someone who suffers from depression and manicness, and gets no help at all, then stay with what you have doctor wise! I know what I suffer from it nothing like you have to deal with though.

Good luck with the medication, it really does sound like something worthwhile to try. More energy sounds great! I am in a depressive cycle at the mo, and just want to stay in bed, anything which would help that has got to be worth a try!

I do really hope it all works out for you, and will be here to read of what happens when you start it soon.

Hope you faired well on the annivesary Ellen.

Kaz sorry to hear you are having a bad time of it.
Did you get a chance to view that article?
I would love hearing you have found some relief one day.

I had horrid problems with amyltriptaline(sp) also, it is very old. The newer related medication took away my ability to read.
Fortunately they are all in a different category than Ellen will be trying!

Ellen if you can just sleep better you will feel better all the way around and have more energy for artwork

Hi all, sleepy, weepy Terri here (all with the aid of only drink & cigs!)

Kaz:
<>

Amitriptaline did exactly that to me as well! I was suppsedly depressed with anxiety symptoms, agoraphobia & probably OCD, self-harming, suicidal...you name it! In actual fact, i had just left my 3rd husband,moved continents, been invaded in Kuwait, was homeless & unemployed; i reckon i had pretty good reasons to feel rather upset! On that drug i still felt all the above, but also got intense paranoia added to the heap...plus couldn't sleep, felt like ants were crawling all over me; not good!

Hellbound: Yup, i have been wondering just what is the actual definition of a nervous breakdown for years now! Have i had one, am i having one now, can i buy one, rent one or book one for a convenient time please,a bit like stars do caesarian births? Is there a discount for more than one?

The whole "classification" thing is a bit of a joke isn't it? I've been dumped in various boxes; "they" can't seem to decide, maybe bipolar (still see visions of eskimo salesmen), schizophrenic (well, mummy dearest was, therefore...) or lots of other stuff; "Not NORMAL" is probably safest, but show me someone who is! Preferably not the nice normal folks who go around torturing humans & laughing about it.As for what people do to animals, don't get me started, i will just be labelled obsessional etc.

Anyway, let's hope this one does the trick for you JEllen.

zdt

Terri, I forgot the crawling skin bit!

Breakdowns, I've had a few, too few to mention!!

Sometimes I think I am having mini ones, I classify them as emotional breakdowns instead of mental breakdowns which are the big obvious ones. But really I have no idea. Sometimes I think I am much worse than I am, and sometimes much better. I don't know how to judge it at all.

Its a nightmare sometimes!

I had the crawling skin bit on something I had before, can't remember which, though. It might have been the Ritalin. I did not like lithium one bit, it completely dulled all of my senses and emotions and I felt like an empty husk of a person, when I felt anything at all. Prozac did that to me on a slightly lesser scale, and made me sleepy all the time as well. The only meds I've ever fared well with have been anti-anxiety meds like Valium, Xanax, and Serzone, which was a godsend but was banned in the US for the effects it can have on the liver.

I can't say that I know or can imagine what it must be like to be bipolar, or agorophobic. All I know is the mild symptoms I do experience are bad enough, and I really do hope that the Abilify will be a huge help for JEllen. I am indeed reading up on it, so I will know what to expect and can offer as much help and support as possible!

I myself am prone to severe anxiety, which can make me more than a little paranoid at times. You know the kind of which I speak... I know Kaz does for sure, and I think JEllen does as well. Many of you probably do, too. That kind of anxiety which leaves you breathless, your pulse racing, breaking out in a cold sweat, where you feel like your heart is in a vice and the life is being squeezed out of you. I'm terribly claustrophobic, and get that in elevators, closets, crowded trains, etc. Especially when other people are in there, pressed against me and breathing down my neck...

Sorry for rambling on again. I guess in spite of being tired, I'm feeling a bit vulnerable and needy as well.

Both myself and my best friend were tested on Amitriptylene years ago. It didn't do anything for me, it did considerably less for my friend who had a real hard time with it.

Bizarrely though, I met someone whose was depressed, and did very well on it!

I miss you like crazy PC

Hi Krispy, glad to see you here.

I'm starting to get excited about the med change, not long to go now.

JE

Hi JEllen! Not long to go now, yay!!

As for your nametag....*sigh*. No answers, no logic to it, but we do don't we. Maybe the fact that we do means we have a bit more humanity than them?

As for nervous breakdowns, i think you only get allowed up to twenty?

"here comes my 19th nervous breakdown"

zdt

>As for nervous breakdowns, i think you only get allowed up to twenty?
<

Oh, hell. I've had at least that already only this month.

JEllen, I also read your new name tag, and haven't an answer, either. Since I've just found you on AIM< perhaps we'll talk about it there...

Oh hell, i thought he meant weekly? It seemed fairly reasonable. you are probably allowed more in France, so long as you don't take them at lunchtimes or on public holidays!(or weekends, Mondays, Wednesday afternoons or if anybody is on strike. Or during July & August of course)

zdt

Yeah. And in Chicago, or at least at my company, you're only allowed them in winter.

How are you doing, Terri, my love? I've been thinking of you, dreaming of Greek Isles, and imagining what it would be like to have all of my h2 friends all flop at my house for a weekend or so.

I'm still looking for cheese box guts to send over with the rest of your stuff. I'm going to send the license tag too, whether P gets it or you do, it's something American, and it's something of mine. And a bit mashed, to boot. We like being mashed, don't we?

Hiya sweetie!

Dunno about like being mashed, but since it seems to happen with sickening regularity, one tends to become accustomed to it a bit!

I will still give the license plate to P, even if i have decided there is no way i can handle his problems & my own in tandem, i am not saying he is an evil guy, he isn't, just one that's screwed up in ways that are incompatible with my own screwed up bits! He would really really get a kick out of that plate.I hope we will still be friends no matter what.

As for any other cheesy stuff (!!!) i will accept & welcome with open arms & mind!

I see you have eyes, hope this doesn't mean you are burning midnight oil when you should be ; i can never work out what time it is there!

take care, squeak soon,

zdt xxx