Posted by Chris O on June 15, 2013, at 12:52:12
In reply to Re: Beat it » Chris O, posted by SLS on June 15, 2013, at 5:06:51
Scott:
Thanks for interacting with me. I've interacted with you a bit in the past, and I've read your thoughtful replies and comments many times, so I am somewhat familiar with your medication regimen. It's hard for me to explain my entire history here, but I'll give it a try. I'm 46 years old, male, have struggled with chronic anxiety (and depression) for my entire life. My mother also struggled/struggles greatly with anxiety and depression. She basically raised me alone, and there was a great deal of inappropriate boundary crossing, from which I am still recovering. In other words, I still feel like I am sorting out who I am due to the biological/psychological damage she did to me. In terms of my anxiety, it verges on panic when I am forced to take care of myself. I am currently married, not working in any serious way, and my wife is taking care of almost everything. It is humiliating in many ways, not the least of which that I don't think I should be in this marriage as--while it provides me with financial security--it is not meeting my "true self" needs. On the rare moment that I stand up for myself, it is a surprise to my wife, and she thinks I am being a jerk (which I often believe, the way I believed it growing up with my mom). I cannot stand this situation any longer.
I lived with my mom pretty much until I was 22 (greatly diminishing any enjoyment or growth I should have been getting out of going to college), at which time I was able to conquer my panic disorder enough to move out. I moved back in within four months of graduating from college, was living with my mother again for a horrible year and a half, was somehow able to get a job, moved out at 24, but ... just have been crippled by my anxiety and panic disorder all the way.
I was in group therapy for much of the 1990s, trying to conquer my anxiety and panic through cognitive therapy and all kinds of activity. But nothing really changed/changes for me. In the late 1990s, I gave in (that's the way it seemed to me at the time) and started taking a combination of Celexa and Wellbutrin (minimum doses of 20mg, 150mg). I switched to Prozac and Wellbutrin, same doses, after 6 months. (The Wellbutrin was only added to combat fatigue at the time as Wellbutrin alone would probably stimulate panic in me.) Anyway, I got some benefit from those drugs at that time, but I also lost my high school teaching job while on them. (Not that I was able to manage classes well with my disorder anyway.)
Over the past decade, I had long-term trials of high dose Prozac (100mg/day), Luvox (450mg/day), Lexapro (40mg/day), Paxil (75mg-100mg/day), Serzone (1200mg/day), Vibryd (40mg/day). I also tried Neurontin for a few weeks, but I didn't get anything from it. I tried other drugs--Effexor, Cymbalta, Remron--for shorter periods and discontinued for one reason or another. Benzos do nothing for me except gloss over my surface symptoms. I need a deep brain change. My D and B12 are chronically low, so I have supplemented quite frequently and fish oil does do a little something for me, though I've been paranoid about taking it ever since Fukushima. (Ah, the beauty of anxiety disorders.) There's a lot more to say, but I don't want to write a novel. Basically, I've been contemplating taking nortriptyline or Nardil for the past year, but haven't done it yet. I seriously doubt that I am bipolar (mania is not even in my vocabulary). It is just low grade panic and inability to manage anything once the pressure is on. It's like a haze over my personality, holding me back. If I had to guess, it's my mother's "hold back my true self" spirit hovering over me in the guise of biology.
I'll stop for now. Glad to hear your current cocktail is having some results. I'd just like to be working and taking care of myself again, not living in this humiliating world of subservience and codependence. It is, on many days, too much for me to bear.
Chris
poster:Chris O
thread:1045186
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20130527/msgs/1045340.html