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Old 02-08-2015, 05:19 PM #1
anxiousguy anxiousguy is offline
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Default Has anyone cured lifelong Depression Anxiety and OCD?

I am a 36 year old male. I have had OCD, Depression and Anxiety as far back as I can remember. I have done everything that I can to treat it - multiple medications, multiple therapists and a slew of naturopathic treatments
Is there any hope for me?

I remember being very young and telling people that I was depressed and they would tell me that I didn’t know what that word meant….but I did. As I got older and more sophisticated, I realized that I had OCD. As an aside, both of my parents had issues. My Mom has OCD to an extent and is very anxious. My Dad has mental health issues too. IDK what….definitely depression. My fraternal twin had bad OCD but it isn’t as bad as mine. He has never treated it.

About ten years ago I decided to do something about it. I started to see a therapist who obviously suggested medication.

Years later I relented. It was becoming so difficult to manage. I started on Zoloft. I don’t know if it was a placebo effect, but I felt better almost immediately. The next 4 or 5 years I went up and down on doses and meds to try to get something to work. I had tons of side effects and didn’t feel much better. I had awful fatigue. I tried more meds and doctors and therapists.

Over the years I was on Zoloft, Wellbutrin, Luvox, amphetamine salts, Prozac, Lamictal, Risperidone, Xanax, Adderall and Ativan.

I was diagnosed (by diff docs) as OCD, ADHD, BIPOLAR2, DYSTHMIA AND GAD

My Father, Uncle and a friend died within 6 months of each other. I didn’t cry. I just felt numb (meds?)

I started to see a NP who helped a friend of mine. She was very nice. She put me on Prozac. When I didn’t feel better, she had me talk to her mentor, a Psychiatrist. He told me that drugs I did as a teenager (pot, etc) screwed up my brain and that I needed to take large doses of Prozac. That was my only hope. I am sure the drugs didn’t help, but I had had this stuff prior to drug use. After that the NP had me on Prozac, Risperidal, Lamictal, Ritalin, Xanax at the same time. I was exhausted. She suggested Provigil. I knew that something wasn’t right. I was so tired that I was falling asleep at stop lights. It was a never ending parade of meds. “Tired? Take this! Can’t sleep? Take this!” At this point, my EXTREME FATIGUE was ruining my life. When I was on 5 things at once with no relief in sight, I told her that I wanted off. I had this feeling that nobody in the mental health field knew what they were doing.

Under her supervision I tapered down over a couple/few weeks.

I did “ok” that year. The fatigue was gone. About 9 months later I crashed. I had major life stuff going on, but I had panic attacks and crying fits for the first time in my anxious life. This was very confusing as I hadn’t cried in 20 years – even when my Dad died. I now think that this might have been protracted withdrawal. I had no clue at the time.

After being on meds and being so fatigued, I started to see a ton of docs and developed health anxiety. On the good side, I radically overhauled my diet. I had tons of very expensive and elaborate bloodwork done. Thousands of dollars worth that takes up a whole binder.

I was having such a hard time that my therapist (not a fan of meds) suggested seeing a local psychiatrist. What was appealing about this guy was that he did genetic testing, serum testing, toxicology testing, transcranial magnetic stimulation and biofeedback. He wanted me to take Deplin and Pristiq. I opted not to take the Pristiq, but to take the Deplin.

My decisions were based on discovering that people had a hard time coming off Pristiq. I also had high norepinephrine and wasn’t sure that was the best med. I opted to just take the Deplin. I then discovered that I was MTHFR a1298C and stopped taking the Deplin because it was a huge dose and I wasn’t taking B12. Methyaltion is SO complicated.

I then tried magnesium, cod liver oil, rhodiola, holy basil, gaba, passion flower and a ton of other natural treatments. I haven’t had success.

I am so lost. I have spent so much time and money on all of this. I feel that no one has any answers. Mediation doesn’t work (too anxious to do it). Therapy doesn’t work. Is this withdrawal? Should I be on meds? Is naturopathy bs?

HELP!!!!!
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Old 02-14-2015, 05:49 PM #2
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http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread215669.html

Hi, Anxiousguy,
I have had Anxiety and Panic Attacks since '83 and have severe Depression. I have just found in my Medical Records I have Depressive Personality Disorder - dx '89. New news to me, interesting to put a label on it, but I digress.
Above is the link to my thread Simple Meditation Technique in Social Chat Forum if I have done it right - I'm such a technophobe.
The point is, my mind is as cluttered as yours, and my body is wracked with pain, but I still benefit from Meditation. It is best to take classes, but obviously this would be hard with Anxiety and OCD.
Just start slowly with the Breathing Meditation.
Have a quiet, peaceful room with no distractions.
Sit comfortably on the floor or in a chair.
Half close your eyes.
Without changing your breathing, concentrate on your breath - the sensation entering and leaving your body.
Concentrate only on your breath, let all other thoughts drift away.
If thoughts impinge, return your mind to your breathing.
Start small. 5-10 minutes is fine, with 1-2 minutes of clarity when you have the technique is good. Build up from there.
The results last throughout the day.
Persevere.

Dave.
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Old 02-16-2015, 08:03 PM #3
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Thank you EnglishDave !!!!
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Old 02-21-2015, 02:30 PM #4
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Cured is a very strong word (at least for me).

However I think I have mostly beaten my melancholy and depression through a mix of therapy (brainspotting, which is an offshoot of EMDR) and low dose lithium aspartate (5mg twice a day). Much of my depression was due to repressing traumas, which the brainspotting therapy helped me face and put behind me.

http://www.amazon.com/Brainspotting-...=brainspotting

I try not to take anymore supplements or medications than I need, and when I've tried to stop the lithium aspartate the depression came back and I went back on.

Lithium is (as far as I know) also the most effective anti-suicide medicine out there.

http://psychcentral.com/news/2013/06...der/56637.html

http://www.townsendletter.com/Nov_20...ithium1102.htm

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1699579

My anxiety is a different story. Ugh. I can handle the day to day anxiety, but the panic attacks I get occasionally can last for hours or the whole day. Hell on earth.
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Old 02-21-2015, 06:46 PM #5
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Hi, Pinochet,
I'm glad therapy has worked in part for you - it is the cause of my current issues with Anxiety. I don't claim that Meditation cures Anxiety or Panic Attacks, but it does strengthen the mind and can very much help keep you calm when the feelings arise.
That being said, it is not 100%, even for me. I had an uncontrollable Attack in a Bank queue - aggravated by being off my pain meds - where I HAD to leave the building immediately.
Even then, once I was 'safe' sat in the car, breathing techniques did help me calm down quicker.

Dave.
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Old 02-22-2015, 12:31 AM #6
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I think that EnglishDave has offered excellent advice.

I do a breathing meditation along the lines that he has described every day as part of my mental health self-care.

I don't have OCD but do experience anxiety.

That meditation helps me to deal with the latter.
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Old 02-22-2015, 01:10 AM #7
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Same here. Learning how to breathe properly and how to relax the mind and body helps so much. I wish all young children were taught these skills at a very early age. It would help them all of their lives. I didn't have much help from therapies or medications. I've been in one state of anxiety or the other all of my life. I was born anxious although mostly others called me shy or weird or different or whatever.

One of the things that I think helped me the most was to actually learn about the physical reaction by the body in times of stress. I mean the fight or flight response. Learning as much as I could about that process has allowed me to recognize when my usual anxious state is about to go over the edge into panic.

Of course, that doesn't always happen and I notice the signs too late and bam.

I must say too that like so many other conditions, anxiety disorders including OCD are very misunderstood by the majority of people who have never experienced them.
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Old 02-25-2015, 12:29 AM #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by anxiousguy View Post
I am a 36 year old male. I have had OCD, Depression and Anxiety as far back as I can remember. I have done everything that I can to treat it - multiple medications, multiple therapists and a slew of naturopathic treatments
Is there any hope for me?

I remember being very young and telling people that I was depressed and they would tell me that I didn’t know what that word meant….but I did. As I got older and more sophisticated, I realized that I had OCD. As an aside, both of my parents had issues. My Mom has OCD to an extent and is very anxious. My Dad has mental health issues too. IDK what….definitely depression. My fraternal twin had bad OCD but it isn’t as bad as mine. He has never treated it.

About ten years ago I decided to do something about it. I started to see a therapist who obviously suggested medication.

Years later I relented. It was becoming so difficult to manage. I started on Zoloft. I don’t know if it was a placebo effect, but I felt better almost immediately. The next 4 or 5 years I went up and down on doses and meds to try to get something to work. I had tons of side effects and didn’t feel much better. I had awful fatigue. I tried more meds and doctors and therapists.

Over the years I was on Zoloft, Wellbutrin, Luvox, amphetamine salts, Prozac, Lamictal, Risperidone, Xanax, Adderall and Ativan.

I was diagnosed (by diff docs) as OCD, ADHD, BIPOLAR2, DYSTHMIA AND GAD

My Father, Uncle and a friend died within 6 months of each other. I didn’t cry. I just felt numb (meds?)

I started to see a NP who helped a friend of mine. She was very nice. She put me on Prozac. When I didn’t feel better, she had me talk to her mentor, a Psychiatrist. He told me that drugs I did as a teenager (pot, etc) screwed up my brain and that I needed to take large doses of Prozac. That was my only hope. I am sure the drugs didn’t help, but I had had this stuff prior to drug use. After that the NP had me on Prozac, Risperidal, Lamictal, Ritalin, Xanax at the same time. I was exhausted. She suggested Provigil. I knew that something wasn’t right. I was so tired that I was falling asleep at stop lights. It was a never ending parade of meds. “Tired? Take this! Can’t sleep? Take this!” At this point, my EXTREME FATIGUE was ruining my life. When I was on 5 things at once with no relief in sight, I told her that I wanted off. I had this feeling that nobody in the mental health field knew what they were doing.

Under her supervision I tapered down over a couple/few weeks.

I did “ok” that year. The fatigue was gone. About 9 months later I crashed. I had major life stuff going on, but I had panic attacks and crying fits for the first time in my anxious life. This was very confusing as I hadn’t cried in 20 years – even when my Dad died. I now think that this might have been protracted withdrawal. I had no clue at the time.

After being on meds and being so fatigued, I started to see a ton of docs and developed health anxiety. On the good side, I radically overhauled my diet. I had tons of very expensive and elaborate bloodwork done. Thousands of dollars worth that takes up a whole binder.

I was having such a hard time that my therapist (not a fan of meds) suggested seeing a local psychiatrist. What was appealing about this guy was that he did genetic testing, serum testing, toxicology testing, transcranial magnetic stimulation and biofeedback. He wanted me to take Deplin and Pristiq. I opted not to take the Pristiq, but to take the Deplin.

My decisions were based on discovering that people had a hard time coming off Pristiq. I also had high norepinephrine and wasn’t sure that was the best med. I opted to just take the Deplin. I then discovered that I was MTHFR a1298C and stopped taking the Deplin because it was a huge dose and I wasn’t taking B12. Methyaltion is SO complicated.

I then tried magnesium, cod liver oil, rhodiola, holy basil, gaba, passion flower and a ton of other natural treatments. I haven’t had success.

I am so lost. I have spent so much time and money on all of this. I feel that no one has any answers. Mediation doesn’t work (too anxious to do it). Therapy doesn’t work. Is this withdrawal? Should I be on meds? Is naturopathy bs?

HELP!!!!!
Hey, AG! i Don't know if anxiety is always permanent, but it does seem to be persistent. My mom always says that there was a "darkness" about me even when I was a boy, and I think that's what she was talking about. I also suffered minor OCD most of my life. In some ways it was beneficial. On an IQ test I scored 139, just one point from what they rated "genius", whatever that is. But I don't think that anyone who hasn't experienced acute anxiety can ever understand how it really feels. Just a week ago I was in the store and the zipper on my leather jacket got stuck closed. I became so anxious so quick that I totally ripped the zipper open and ruined it. But of course you know how that works. I wish I could answer your question, but I just really don't know. All I know is that anxiety is torture, and I wish you the best in dealing with it.
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Old 02-27-2015, 01:09 PM #9
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http://psychology-tools.com/

I came across these after finding the Pain Scales and find the Zung Self-Assessment Tests for Anxiety and Depression intriguing. It was nice to run through them myself rather than have the added stress of an MD do it.
As expected, and fyi my scores were:
Anxiety 75/80
Depression 76/80.

Then, for fun, I took the Personality Type Indicator (MBTI) Test.
This tells me I am an ISTJ Type - The Examiner. Reading through the meaning on Wikipedia, I find it accurately describes me as logical, introverted, steadfast, loyal, etc, etc.
Funny thing is, if you look at my Chinese Zodiac character, The Ox, you will find I'm logical, introverted, steadfast, loyal, etc, etc…
Read into this what you will.

Dave.
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Old 03-01-2015, 03:04 PM #10
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Thank you everyone for all of the help
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