Ally,

over the last few years, I was "given" a myriad of psychiatric diagnoses,
to the extent that I thought of "volunteering" to participate in pshychiatric residency training, as they could actually see almost every possible psychiatric problem in one person!

or as one neuorlogist said to me, a while ago, almost apologetically- well, your illness did not fit any entity that we know, so the only possible explanation was that you have some emotional problems.

and I asked him then it means that your ignorance, means that I have emotional problems? obviously, he had no reasonable answer to that question.

and it made more sense to you, that I subconciously "invented" an illness that would give me the amazing oppurtunity to "fall" into the arms of the head of my dept., have near intubation respiratory tests, find myself in the ICU, with a central line and emergent plasmapharsis, then to think that I may have some rare variant of MG, that does not exactly fit your book?

as you can imagine, he had no resonable answer to that question either.

I repeatedly refused to take antidepressants that were "offered" to me by caring physicians, colleagues/friends, who could not see me so sad.
and suggested that if it is so hard for them to see me like that, maybe they should take antidepressants instead.

I constantly explained to them, that it is completely normal to be sad, and concerned when you have an illness, that pretty much put an end to your blooming carreer, and I also tried to explain to them (without much success) that when you keep on telling a patient that they have emotional problems, then that in itself will eventually lead to depression, and their ability to trust themselves and their coping skills.

when one extremely "'smart" pulmonoloigst, told me that there is no way he can know if and when my shortness of breath, and feeling of suffocation is due to my illness or anxiety, I asked him how then does he know, when cutting an onion and tears start feeling his eyes, if it due to his grief on the fate of the poor onion or some physiological response to the juice of the onion?

but, all the time I knew that I had no reason in the world to be depressed. I knew that my emotional responses were completely normal, and there was no doubt in my mind that my symptoms are not caused by stress or depression or ill defined emotional problems that conventional psychiatrists don't understand, or munchausen syndrome etc.
and I asked myself what would have happened if I did? how could I fight all this, if I did have reasons to be depressed, other then this illness and the way it was managed? what if I did not have my own clinical skills to trust?

Well, Ally, reading your post, was seeing someone who was able to do all this-you had very good reasons to be depressed, you did not have all the tools that I did, and still you were able to fight this, and not lose your trust in other people, not lose your love for your life and those that need you.
and you seem to be on the right track to recieve proper care.


you say- So, I wonder about that. Is that really depression or just a terrible situation? Wouldn’t any perfectly normal person faced with devastating financial worries mixed with agonizing boredom mixed with physical suffering feel depressed? Is it really depression if you still want to be alive and active but you can’t? I don’t know and I guess it doesn’t matter because it feels awful either way. Although I suppose it does matter because most of us have this situational depression to some degree and in a perfect world we could fix some parts that make it bad – the financial worry, the isolation. I guess in a way that makes it a little more hopeful.

I don't wonder at all. yes, every perfectly normal person would feel that way or even much worse, and yes, it does matter, because depression is a medical illness, like every other, and not being sad about the hardships of life. and just like you say-finding the way to fix some parts will definitely make it better.

all I can say is that you deserve the best possible help and support, and I do hope that your neurologist will eventually be able to see you as you really are, and be your true partner in this.

alice