Posted by baseball55 on May 3, 2016, at 18:37:57
In reply to How do you monitor depression for yourself?, posted by Tabitha on May 2, 2016, at 16:25:40
My p-doc/therapist always worried because the descents happened so fast. I could go from feeling okay to suddenly getting ready to kill myself.
He urged me to work with a DBT therapist and I started to watch this more closely. I realized the first sign was a loss of levity. I felt irritable, angry, lost any sense of humor or lightness. That might last a few days. After that, the fall was so far and deep that I would end up pacing all night trying to keep myself from killing myself. But recognizing that loss of levity made me call my p-doc and start immediately on abilify, which has been this magic med for me. I take it and within 48 hours, I'm better. Then within two weeks, I've gained 5 pounds. So I take it as a prn now. Just to pull me out once I start noticing the irritability.
> Hi. For those of you with mood disorders, I'm curious about how you self-monitor to notice that you are entering a depression. I get fooled time and time again because it comes on so slowly that the distorted thoughts seem true. I'm also used to putting up a normal-seeming front because I don't want to be a drag or seem crazy. Because of that, others don't notice my depression until it's really severe.
>
> The end result of not successfully noticing I'm having another episode is that I go months or years without getting my treatment updated.
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> I keep thinking there must be some indicator I could learn to see. What do you folks do? Do you self-monitor or count on your pdoc or therapist to monitor you?
poster:baseball55
thread:1088614
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20160501/msgs/1088650.html