I wish I knew what to do

[blues90]

My wife has been agoraphobic for many many years , she can't even sit at the home computer most days and keep her hands steady and has tried meds of various types with little help of alot of side effects and she is on SSI . She is also depressed

I suffer from depression and panic attacks . i have been out of work for 4 months and now if and when I do find work she will be alone all day which i think about and she deals with and the few friends she had moved away .

Things got so bad with the depression last week we both felt like just ending it all . Each day is an adventure in ups and downs and we try to support eachother . I wanted to find some sort of work we could do together , this would allow us to support eachother and her not having to sit in the house all day completely alone which is a tough deal to go through .

In light of all the horrors bush has dished out bot of us are political and this just adds to the depression , it's almost we have nothing left to loose if we marched right up to the white house and ranted .

I can work but knowing she is stuck makes working much more difficult so we have cell phones to stay in contact throughout the day but even this is not a solution .

Both of us have no idea what to do , she is 60 and I am 57 and it just seems like the end most times . I don't know how we got here , we used to be able to get out and this was before she had to loose her teeth and this certainly did not help the moral with dentures . I don't know how things could get much worse .

[Pharaoh]

1. Your in a bad spot buddy

But you've been there before and tomorrows another day.

I don't know your beliefs or anything , but I've found if I pray on a certain problem or situation, and then, pay attention, God has a way of helping me through these logjams....

I have faith that you will wake up tomorrow and things will look much much better, O8)


edited to say: I like your avatar!:toast:

[usregimechange]

2. Comprehensive treatment

Meaning therapy and temp meds. It will help. Can you guys afford it?

[DemExpat]

3. Your wife's medications do not help at all?

I would look into having them assessed and adjusted, as well as into cognitive therapy specialized in panic/phobias.

In my history of similar symptoms, I experienced that my chronic depression and suicidal urges went hand in hand with anxiety/panic disorder, and that when I took little steps with one aspect, the other improved as well. My tips have to do with my life experiences with these often paralyzing and terrifying mental states.

I read books on Panic attacks that helped me a lot - learning not to be afraid of dying from the physical sensations of panic as they were "only" rushes of adrenalin and the fight/flight conflict. Learning balancing breathing techniques helped me too - I was surprised at how powerful concentrating on regular and easy breathing in the face of stressful situations and thought/feelings could ward off full-blown panic attacks. My daughter also learned these techniques when she felt she was developing more symptoms of this disorder as well - she learned them from a psychiatric nurse specializing in teaching these breathing techniques for panic/anxiety disorder sufferers.

Lifestyle steps helped me as well - really cutting out the food additives and processed foods, watching caffeine and sugar intake especially!, getting nutrients from food and supplements as well.
Doing some daily exercise to move and relax the body also very helpful - I walk now after learning to ward off the mental, emotional and physical symptoms of my chronic agoraphobia and claustrophobia that crippled me for many years.

Having a counselor/therapist/doctor to talk to, have counseling with, is supportive while taking the steps to get into balance.

What to do? Take steps, starting today, no matter how tiny, to work yourselves out of this situation. Look for a good therapist if you have access to this - for yourselves as well as perhaps together as a couple. Read some books on getting out of panic/anxiety and depression.
Maybe learn some breathing techniques to combat stress and ward off panic attacks. Overhaul your eating habits and ingest nutrient rich foods/supplements. Pick one or any positive step to re-gaining good health, and see if it has effect.

I wish you both the best in this. It might help to know that there are those here who do really understand what your situation feels like.

DemEx

[bloom]

4. Job wise

You might think about something like managing a small apartment complex or B&B or something. Sometimes places like that look for couples.

[kineneb]

5. do you have

pets or plants? Working in my garden seems to help me a great deal...pulling weeds is a wonderful way to relieve stress and feel like you are doing something productive. My shrink thought it was good for me and always inquired about my gardening.

Pets are good therapy, too. They force you to care for something outside yourself. We have a pet chicken now (yes, a pet chicken), who is a great friend and companion. Just having her sit on my lap and petting her makes me feel better.

I have been living with depression/panic/OCD issues most of my life, and have been on meds for about 20 years. I also have family problems that make life difficult: Hubby is on dialysis, and his medical care is the center of our lives. Hang in there, remember to breathe, go smell some roses.

[Tab]

6. What anti-deps is she using?

For instance, for some people, Citalopram (Celexa) can give them the shakes and not have a lot of effect on depression; moving to something like Effexor can make an improvement. Assuming the tremors aren't from something else (e.g.: Parkinson's).

Obviously we can't tell from here, and can't give out medical advice anyway, but I would urge you to tell your doc about all the different effects - tremors, lack of success with the meds, etc. Some people get a lot of reaction from a certain class of drug, and do perfectly fine on others. It's not unusual to work through three or four different kinds of meds before you find the one optimal for you. Unfortunately, with some meds, there's a ramp-up time of a few weeks to see an effect, so the process can take a while.

I remember one time I was prescribed HCTZ (Hydrochlorothiazide) for high blood pressure. Over the next few weeks I was increasingly sick and although I figured I was just "sick" by the end of four or five weeks I could barely get out of bed, was vomiting constantly, and shuffled around like I was on thorazine or something. I knew this wasn't "normal sick". Turns out, I'm allergic to sulfa. Who knew? I have not been on many meds in my life, so I didn't know that I was allergic to anything (except for cats). I was so sick those five weeks.

We stopped it and moved to another type, and within days most of the symptoms were gone, and within 10 days everything had cleared up.

There's no way to know that I would have reacted in advance that way, so it just is basically trial and error. If this doesn't work, try that... eventually narrowing it down to the stuff you can tolerate.

Good luck!

[Humor_In_Cuneiform]

7. Self-help books can do a lot while we wait for the world to

become a little more sane.

There are books about depression that provide ideas on coming out of the depression. I hesitate to say "reframing" given the meaning it has taken on politically lately.

But "Feeling Good, The New Mood Therapy" came out way before the neocons got into reframing our whole world.

Then there are books on anxiety and agoraphobia. About "exposure treatment," to gradually desensitize oneself to those things that you're reactive to.

Any responsible book will caution readers to not attempt any of these things if you're not in a decent, stable place mentally.

Good luck. One thing that often helps me if I can recall it is that the bad feelings will have a finite life.

It may seem like I'll feel bad forever, and have always felt badly, but in fact it isn't true.