chilliconcarnage
12-22-2011, 03:20 AM
Well I consider myself as a normal family man, two children, happy marriage and a secure job. The only thing which may seem different to the Television “perfect norm” is that I have been suffering from Anxiety for many years. So, just a quick history of my life and the episodes that have sparked my Anxiety and a depressive episode and ultimately led to me deciding to share my experiences.
When I started going to Secondary school it was a daily (often cramped/hot) 9 mile commute on a double Decker bus. This wasn’t really a problem until one day I realised that half way through the journey I needed the toilet. This was a stressful situation and resulted in me having to get off the bus and having to find a bush! Yes not very glamorous or dignified but it had to be done! The next day, worry had set in that the same incident would happen again, and then a vicious cycle started and eventually this situation coupled with a bit of bullying led to me bunking off and not doing too well at school. When I finished school and started working, local jobs in a greengrocers and take away delivery driver, the symptoms of Anxiety I had felt at school had TOTALLY disappeared.
Fast forward a few years to when I decided I needed to think seriously about a career, and applied to join the police. No problems, I got through training pretty much unscathed and started as a response officer in one of the roughest boroughs in London. Two years later, still enjoying my job and getting on well, a few life changes were happening. Namely our first child had arrived and we were planning on getting married. Plus I was moving to a south London borough, and...to top it off were moving to a new address in Kent. So as you can imagine, a few stressful life changes, which at the time I didn’t feel really stressed about. So (if your still with me ) one day we were driving home to our London address after visiting my parents in Kent , arriving at a toll crossing, busy in general with a queue of traffic in front of us , when I turned my head to look behind us, I saw a big stream of cars advancing to form an even bigger queue behind. It was at this point that something happened....
Tunnel vision, extreme panic, and a feeling that I was trapped, and an urgent almost frantic need to get out of this stationary car “blockade”. I then spent the next hour in the local service station crying to my parents and also my police sergeant about how I had just felt extremely panicky and stressed. The result of this “breakdown” was the onset of GAD (Generalised Anxiety Disorder) and four months off work. During this time and an extra couple of months the house move happened and so did the marriage. I had started taking an Anti anxiety medication prescribed by my local GP but decided not to take the full course (for a reason now I can’t even remember...possibly me not being able to come to terms with my anxiety diagnosis, or thinking I could deal with it without meds?)
My Anxiety had manifested itself in a form of IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) anxiety. Now this isn’t something you feel you can really talk about. You have a grown man (me) explaining that it’s difficult to go out unless I knew EXACTLY where the local toilets were. So this left me in the position of being office bound and not being able to be out on the streets as a Police officer. This Anxiety was totally irrational, illogical and had no basis what so ever. Vicious circle, Panic about needing the toilet, physical symptoms, panic more, more physical symptoms, and on and on. In the years to come and following I had learnt many unhelpful behaviours. Such as always sitting in the carriage of the train which had a toilet, standing next to the loo on the station platform, worrying in case anyone went into the toilet, avoiding social situations with friends, becoming withdrawn from pretty much any social activity unless the person I was with totally understood. I had recently applied for a CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) course which I had found in the Police Occupational Health website. I managed to get onto this and had three sessions at a drop in clinic in London followed by three other telephone consultations. The CBT made me feel a bit more anxious at first as you have to face your fears, but I understood the reason for this and took it head on. So I was feeling positive...
Fast forward again to around two and a half months ago...
I had a few consecutive days where I would wake up in the morning around 4am and had restless night’s sleep (anyone who has had depression will probably be saying “uh oh”). On the fourth day of this happening I thought in my head before looking at my watch after waking “It’s 4am”, and lo and behold looking at my watch it was five past four. I didn’t really think much of this and thought it may be the case I had a virus as I was feeling run down and tired all the time as well. Again I woke up around four and decided to go to work early. I remember walking through the town centre where my office was, about two hours early for work. No issues throughout the day and I finished early as well. Still feeling a little off colour and tired, I had an early(ish) night’s sleep.
One thirty am I woke, bolt upright in bed feeling absolutely horrible. I had just suffered a horrific dream in which my children were being injured and I was the perpetrator, and also other scenes of horror and distressing visions in my dream. I had woken up feeling like something REALLY bad had, or was going to happen, I felt isolated, out of reality and “creepy”. I also felt very unhappy and had what I can only describe as a pressure on my chest, utter despair and a feeling of impending doom/dread. I woke my wife and told her how I felt. She reassured me and said it may be stress. I managed to go back to sleep, but from that dream is when everything changed and I felt I had fallen down the “Rabbit hole”. I struggled into work for another week, feeling just terrible and very down. I finally plucked up the courage and visited my doctor who said that from what I had told him, I was depressed.
I was prescribed 15mg of Citalopram as a “maintenance dose”. At first this medication made me feel quite sedated and almost like I was speaking slowly. Then after a few days I felt like there was no hope and that I was useless, and full of despair. I also noticed small bruises had appeared on my feet and lower parts of my legs. Little bruises about the size of the end of a finger tip. I started having suicidal thoughts. Not so much planning and spending time on thinking exactly how I was going to end my life, but more of quick thoughts that would pop into my head and then go away again. I also thought of death a lot. I was starting to feel very very low.
I visited the doctor again and described how I felt. He took me of the Citalopram straight away as it was his opinion that the bruises on my feet may be a side effect of the medication and it could be related to a blood disorder due to the meds (I still have them now, so it may not have been the case). I came off them and was put onto 15mg of Mirtazapine. At first they started to work ok, and I can say that I felt slightly better. This didn’t last long though and I soon had to go up to 30mg once a day (at night). I was sleeping well, but with a few vivid, but not nasty, dreams. And I was eating like a horse. I had visited my local Mental health Unit who gave me an appointment which lasted one hour forty five minutes, and during this time my life was picked apart to try and find out why exactly I had suffered the Sudden Severe Depressive episode, it was quite an emotional time for me, because you rarely think about your life in that great detail, and I realise I had been living slightly depressed for years. But after a few weeks of being on 30mg I started feeling more depressed in the morning and that’s when the most horrible part of my depression started to creep in. Intrusive thoughts. I was put onto 45mg of Mirtazapine and again at first it was ok, although I can’t report any ease of my “morning” depression. But I was getting more and more intrusive thoughts. I’m going to explain these.
The thoughts are sometimes of a violent nature. For example me thinking “In a minute I’m going to kill someone” If I picked up a knife I sometimes think “I’m going to stab my family”. I even had a thought of punching my son in the face, he is 6 These thoughts could also be sexual, and also sexually directed towards my children, random members of the public and sometimes to people of the same sex as me. This is the most distressing and difficult thing for me to deal with. I have spoken to two doctors, a Psychiatric nurse and a counsellor about these. The answer I have had from everyone is that these are a side effects of depression and that’s what these Intrusive thoughts are, and that they do not relate to me in any way what so ever. This gave me comfort that I wasn’t going mad, wasn’t a paedophile, wasn’t a murdering psychopath or anything else that may randomly pop into my brain. It may sound like I’m making light of these thoughts but they would leave me VERY VERY down, depressed, constantly upset and crying and to the point whereby I truly thought I would be better off dead, and just wanted relief from this daily waking nightmare. So I called my doctor (psychiatrist, not my local GP) again and told her what I was feeling. I was given an appointment 2hrs later....
When I started going to Secondary school it was a daily (often cramped/hot) 9 mile commute on a double Decker bus. This wasn’t really a problem until one day I realised that half way through the journey I needed the toilet. This was a stressful situation and resulted in me having to get off the bus and having to find a bush! Yes not very glamorous or dignified but it had to be done! The next day, worry had set in that the same incident would happen again, and then a vicious cycle started and eventually this situation coupled with a bit of bullying led to me bunking off and not doing too well at school. When I finished school and started working, local jobs in a greengrocers and take away delivery driver, the symptoms of Anxiety I had felt at school had TOTALLY disappeared.
Fast forward a few years to when I decided I needed to think seriously about a career, and applied to join the police. No problems, I got through training pretty much unscathed and started as a response officer in one of the roughest boroughs in London. Two years later, still enjoying my job and getting on well, a few life changes were happening. Namely our first child had arrived and we were planning on getting married. Plus I was moving to a south London borough, and...to top it off were moving to a new address in Kent. So as you can imagine, a few stressful life changes, which at the time I didn’t feel really stressed about. So (if your still with me ) one day we were driving home to our London address after visiting my parents in Kent , arriving at a toll crossing, busy in general with a queue of traffic in front of us , when I turned my head to look behind us, I saw a big stream of cars advancing to form an even bigger queue behind. It was at this point that something happened....
Tunnel vision, extreme panic, and a feeling that I was trapped, and an urgent almost frantic need to get out of this stationary car “blockade”. I then spent the next hour in the local service station crying to my parents and also my police sergeant about how I had just felt extremely panicky and stressed. The result of this “breakdown” was the onset of GAD (Generalised Anxiety Disorder) and four months off work. During this time and an extra couple of months the house move happened and so did the marriage. I had started taking an Anti anxiety medication prescribed by my local GP but decided not to take the full course (for a reason now I can’t even remember...possibly me not being able to come to terms with my anxiety diagnosis, or thinking I could deal with it without meds?)
My Anxiety had manifested itself in a form of IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) anxiety. Now this isn’t something you feel you can really talk about. You have a grown man (me) explaining that it’s difficult to go out unless I knew EXACTLY where the local toilets were. So this left me in the position of being office bound and not being able to be out on the streets as a Police officer. This Anxiety was totally irrational, illogical and had no basis what so ever. Vicious circle, Panic about needing the toilet, physical symptoms, panic more, more physical symptoms, and on and on. In the years to come and following I had learnt many unhelpful behaviours. Such as always sitting in the carriage of the train which had a toilet, standing next to the loo on the station platform, worrying in case anyone went into the toilet, avoiding social situations with friends, becoming withdrawn from pretty much any social activity unless the person I was with totally understood. I had recently applied for a CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) course which I had found in the Police Occupational Health website. I managed to get onto this and had three sessions at a drop in clinic in London followed by three other telephone consultations. The CBT made me feel a bit more anxious at first as you have to face your fears, but I understood the reason for this and took it head on. So I was feeling positive...
Fast forward again to around two and a half months ago...
I had a few consecutive days where I would wake up in the morning around 4am and had restless night’s sleep (anyone who has had depression will probably be saying “uh oh”). On the fourth day of this happening I thought in my head before looking at my watch after waking “It’s 4am”, and lo and behold looking at my watch it was five past four. I didn’t really think much of this and thought it may be the case I had a virus as I was feeling run down and tired all the time as well. Again I woke up around four and decided to go to work early. I remember walking through the town centre where my office was, about two hours early for work. No issues throughout the day and I finished early as well. Still feeling a little off colour and tired, I had an early(ish) night’s sleep.
One thirty am I woke, bolt upright in bed feeling absolutely horrible. I had just suffered a horrific dream in which my children were being injured and I was the perpetrator, and also other scenes of horror and distressing visions in my dream. I had woken up feeling like something REALLY bad had, or was going to happen, I felt isolated, out of reality and “creepy”. I also felt very unhappy and had what I can only describe as a pressure on my chest, utter despair and a feeling of impending doom/dread. I woke my wife and told her how I felt. She reassured me and said it may be stress. I managed to go back to sleep, but from that dream is when everything changed and I felt I had fallen down the “Rabbit hole”. I struggled into work for another week, feeling just terrible and very down. I finally plucked up the courage and visited my doctor who said that from what I had told him, I was depressed.
I was prescribed 15mg of Citalopram as a “maintenance dose”. At first this medication made me feel quite sedated and almost like I was speaking slowly. Then after a few days I felt like there was no hope and that I was useless, and full of despair. I also noticed small bruises had appeared on my feet and lower parts of my legs. Little bruises about the size of the end of a finger tip. I started having suicidal thoughts. Not so much planning and spending time on thinking exactly how I was going to end my life, but more of quick thoughts that would pop into my head and then go away again. I also thought of death a lot. I was starting to feel very very low.
I visited the doctor again and described how I felt. He took me of the Citalopram straight away as it was his opinion that the bruises on my feet may be a side effect of the medication and it could be related to a blood disorder due to the meds (I still have them now, so it may not have been the case). I came off them and was put onto 15mg of Mirtazapine. At first they started to work ok, and I can say that I felt slightly better. This didn’t last long though and I soon had to go up to 30mg once a day (at night). I was sleeping well, but with a few vivid, but not nasty, dreams. And I was eating like a horse. I had visited my local Mental health Unit who gave me an appointment which lasted one hour forty five minutes, and during this time my life was picked apart to try and find out why exactly I had suffered the Sudden Severe Depressive episode, it was quite an emotional time for me, because you rarely think about your life in that great detail, and I realise I had been living slightly depressed for years. But after a few weeks of being on 30mg I started feeling more depressed in the morning and that’s when the most horrible part of my depression started to creep in. Intrusive thoughts. I was put onto 45mg of Mirtazapine and again at first it was ok, although I can’t report any ease of my “morning” depression. But I was getting more and more intrusive thoughts. I’m going to explain these.
The thoughts are sometimes of a violent nature. For example me thinking “In a minute I’m going to kill someone” If I picked up a knife I sometimes think “I’m going to stab my family”. I even had a thought of punching my son in the face, he is 6 These thoughts could also be sexual, and also sexually directed towards my children, random members of the public and sometimes to people of the same sex as me. This is the most distressing and difficult thing for me to deal with. I have spoken to two doctors, a Psychiatric nurse and a counsellor about these. The answer I have had from everyone is that these are a side effects of depression and that’s what these Intrusive thoughts are, and that they do not relate to me in any way what so ever. This gave me comfort that I wasn’t going mad, wasn’t a paedophile, wasn’t a murdering psychopath or anything else that may randomly pop into my brain. It may sound like I’m making light of these thoughts but they would leave me VERY VERY down, depressed, constantly upset and crying and to the point whereby I truly thought I would be better off dead, and just wanted relief from this daily waking nightmare. So I called my doctor (psychiatrist, not my local GP) again and told her what I was feeling. I was given an appointment 2hrs later....