Posted by Racer on August 6, 1999, at 11:56:14
In reply to living with the symptoms, posted by michel on August 1, 1999, at 23:44:34
Dunno about panic disorder, but I often feel isolated and the only one who has ever suffered from my unique set of problems. I think that isolation is one reason it's so hard to treat most mood disorders. After all, I don't want to admit that I'm as wretched and awful as I know myself to be, so I hide a lot of things from the world - including doctors. It's a symptom of the pathology, the disease state.
Your son might benefit from something that helps me: I picture the depression as being a discrete entity, like a demon that wants me to give in, to lose myself in its evil. So many of the symptoms of depression are designed to keep the depression active, to force the depressive to continue on without relief. Things like the knowledge that no drug will help someone so messed up, that the treatments are meant for someone else, someone who deserves to feel better - unlike myself. All those feelings are the depression demon trying to survive inside me. The same goes for my eating disorder. No matter what my healthy brain says, the demons tell me it's wrong. I really am way too fat, I really am the most hideous creature on earth. Those are the messages I get from the demons. The trick for me is to learn to recognise their voices, and counter their messages with newer, healthier messages of my own.
Good luck to you both, and your son is blessed to have such a caring parent.
poster:Racer
thread:9489
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/19990726/msgs/9693.html