Mental health check-in

[PunkKitty]

^^^ I'm glad that you found someone else. I walked out of a session with my last psychiatrist when he told me to go get ECT because the med combination he prescribed wasn't working and he refused to deviate from my Genesight profile. I ended up finding a Psychiatric Nurse Patictioner who, after some trial and error (which I expect) devised a cocktail of buproprion, lamotragine, and duloxetine that I have been on for at least 7 years. We tweek the dosages here and there, but for the most part, I have been stable. And that's all I ask for out of psych meds. I don't expect to be dancing in the streets, but stability works. She has honestly been one of the best psychiatrists that I've ever had.

 

[jp_nyc]

Abilify is weird. I’ve been trying it before bed. It makes me sleepy so I take it and crash. Then, two or three hours later, I wake up and insomnia kicks in. But this stuff is supposed to pass over a few weeks so I guess I’ll wait it out. Unfortunately I can’t also take Xanax, Ambien, or cannabis to knock me out because it will make all the side effects worse. On the upside, once I’m out of be I feel pretty good.

 

[Pine Apple Slim]

I went thru various antidepressants back when I was still working and had 2 parents in and out of the nursing home or 24 hr at home care for 4-5 yrs running. I was an only child, and taking care of my own household plus managing their affairs, and my wife's alcohol problem. I was just completely stressed out. Some drugs made me listless and apathetic, some did nothing that I could tell, and they all seemed to make the old guy "performance" problem worse. The only things that really helped was a change in circumstances, the eventual end of the parental care, retirement, and getting a divorce.