Posted by Girlnterrupted78 on March 11, 2009, at 21:46:13
I will make this as brief as possible.
I have suffered from depression, social anxiety and anger problems ever since I was about 3-4 years old.
I am extremely sensitive to criticism and I am very uncomfortable in social situations. I have a lack of happiness where I can't smile unless I'm laughing at something funny, but for the most part it's VERY hard for me to smile. I also get angry very easily and my defense mechanisms are now taking over my whole life. So besides being anxious and depressed, I'm also sabotaging myself with all the (pathological?) mechanisms employed to deal with the distress of depression/anxiety.
I have tried several of AD's: Paxil, Zoloft, Celexa, Lexapro, Effexor, Nardil, Abilify, Lithium, Wellbutrin.
The single ONLY one that worked WONDERS was Celexa (and to some extent Adderall--but only for like a month.)
Celexa changed my life for a whole year. I was smiling literally every second, talking to everyone all the time, dating, meeting new people, etc. I was super creative and funny very naturally and spontaneously. I feel that was probably the "real" me, (when my personality was not clouded and flooded with depression and anxiety.) But Celexa pooped out after 1 year. Nothing has worked ever since.
Now my doctor doesn't know what to try next. I don't know either. Based on my chemistry, it seems like my problem is dopamine. But I tried Nardil precisely for that, and it didn't work. Yet adderall (a dopaminergic agent, I think) was great.
I feel like AD's worked for a small period of time, and somehow messed up my chemistry, which is now beyond treatment (that's my speculation, based on my failure to respond to any further treatment.) But I don't want to lose hope and I wonder if anyone here has any idea on what could I try next that might kickstart my production of dopamine (or serotonin, whichever is missing.)
Please give me any suggestions. My doctor is going to prescribe Prozac (since it's the only SSRI I never tried) but I'm not overly excited about it. Are there any successful treatments for social anxiety and depression, anger, sensitivity, etc? It just seems impossible to treat.
What else is there out there?
Any info would be greatly appreciated.
poster:Girlnterrupted78
thread:884934
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20090304/msgs/884934.html