Help Dealing with depressive episodes?

[tooBadTooLate]

Hey there everyone. I noticed I've been getting those depressive episodes more frequently since the last couple of weeks. From what I have seen, it seems to come up (triggered?) when I get very angry or out of nowhere, with nothing to do.

I've come to understand in the past months that I likely have anger problems, considering my frequent resentment and thoughts of incurring harm onto someone, how irritable I have been getting recently, especially with my dad (who I absolutely cannot stand, and I have been struggling to keep up my attempts at forming a social life because of how my intrusive thoughts reflect that.

Most of the time, the episodes end up having me going on a venting spiral about how inadequate I am to everyone else, how I can't just swallow my pride that brought me to here, and that I should just CtB instead of enduring this any further. At times they make me fear for my life.

I just want to build a social life so I can find a job and get away from my family, pay for my drugs and estrogen, and be a decent human being.

By the way, apologies if I haven't been on the site for too long. Life got in the way, as well as socialization; I am now somewhat in a better state of mental health, even my depression seem to get in the way.

 

[Dür Ktulhu]

A lot of things can help. For example, rituals, or pharmacology-if the problem is episodic, pharmacology will definitely help, but one can also take a long-term course of antidepressants on a chronic basis-it's a wonderful thing. Additionally, ask to be prescribed diazepam for special occasions. Sometimes a person blames themselves for certain feelings, when they simply have a serotonin deficiency: the power of chemistry over us is immense.

 

[tooBadTooLate]

A lot of things can help. For example, rituals, or pharmacology-if the problem is episodic, pharmacology will definitely help, but one can also take a long-term course of antidepressants on a chronic basis-it's a wonderful thing. Additionally, ask to be prescribed diazepam for special occasions. Sometimes a person blames themselves for certain feelings, when they simply have a serotonin deficiency: the power of chemistry over us is immense.

I appreciate that you responded. I had been on SSRIs for a while, only stopping them because they didn't work for me. I also had a drinking problem that I managed to kick for a while now, but even then I still don't want to try sertaline again.

Diazepam could be a worthwhile path to look into. I am aware that I do have a bad habit of abusing drugs, but cannabis and estrogen had managed to tame it. I do worry about developing a dependence to it, especially if treatment ends up taking longer than it should be -- I don't want to end up being even bigger of a wreck than I already am.

I honestly don't know about serotonin deficiency; is it normal for someone to have been deficient of it since they were a teenager? That might explain more-or-less about my behavior since I left high school.

 

[Solaria]

I've been depressed since high school so can confirm, yes, you can be deficient since you're a teenager. SSRIs are not the only type of antidepressant, so if you haven't tried others it would be worth seeing a psychiatrist and trying something else. It takes time and experimentation to find the right combo of meds because unfortunately we are all wired a bit differently and they have no way to know exactly what works for each person until we try them. Sucks I know, but finding the right meds is worth it.

Your drug use might be your attempt at self medicating the pain away. But finding the right meds will remove that need, so it's worth trying even if that's hard. In my own experience, fixing the brain chemicals helped to make doing the other life stuff much more possible.

You mentioned estrogen - not sure if that means you're trans, but if so, you have all my sympathies. Dealing with that stuff in a hateful world is hard. If you're not transitioning, I'm curious what the estrogen is for, if you don't mind sharing (obviously if it's too personal, just ignore what I said).