Ken Duckworth, M.D. (PART 2): How Do You Move Beyond Blue?

12 Step Programs are not for everyone, nor is it sufficient to treat all conditions. If you knew me, it would sound like the most off-beat statement, as I am 15 years sober through AA, have sponsored a number of women for 14 of those years, and I am extremely grateful for the life saving lessons taught along the way and the people who carried me along when I felt as though I could not take one more step. I have had to utilize a multi-disciplinary mode of "recovery". I do not mean that it's been an a la carte, pick from column 1,2 or 3, way of processing this journey. However, there are no absolutes. I have numerous factual examples to back this up in my own experience; but I am too weak, tired, and depressed today to be bothered in backing my writing. I believe that AA has definitely kept me from total self-destruction, but if not for the medication that I never go off (I don't get the part about people starting to feel better and going off medication - that's why they feel better in the first place - DUH!) - sorry to sound condescending - as I said, I'm at the end of my rope today and really don't want to tie a knot in it and hang on. Having said what I began with, if I the medical community was my only option in care for all of my "issues" - too many I care to list right now - I probably would have killed myself, if not for my 2 sons. My physician sees me yesterday for 10 minutes yesterday, and because I can be humorous & make a decent presentation - it is determined that I am coping well and off I go with my prescriptions for the day. I was not "acting" through the office visit, he's known me for years, but today I feel like absolute crap. Yes, I know all about gratitude and this too shall pass. I could probably outdo most with the cliches and implementing them constructively. I needed a therapist one-on-one in the early days, along with a competent physician and the 12 step program and sponsor. I was a huge work in progress. I've come a long; however I have another life altering illness that kicks my butt daily. So I don't feel like a cheerleader today, and I do not have any encouraging words. Actually, I don't want to do "try" anymore. I am so sick and tired of being sick and tired. I am the financial household provider. My husband's not a slacker. It's a result of a comedy of errors, which have been surreal these past few years. But I can't "afford" to be sick. Not just in dollars and cents for the copays and insurance premiums. Today is one of those days that I am cooked, fried and crispy; mentally, emotionally & physically. I don't want to kill myself, but I don't want to do life right now. I have streamlined my life in coping with all of this as much as possible, and many days it still sucks. So I needed a place to just write this down and "say" it out loud.

My DBSA support group (in my area, NAMI support groups are primarily for friends and relatives, not consumers) has been a G-dsend -- and given my sometime religious skepticism, I absolutely mean that, which I hope says something.

But the DBSA group (which I'm headed off to shortly, as tonight's moderator) is not a 12-step group, and I'm not sure it would work on a 12-step model. Mind you, as a child of an alcoholic who binge-drank my way through college -- though I'm now a teetotaler -- I've been to tons of 12-step meetings, and they helped in those discrete situations.

However, depression (IMHO) is not addiction or a dysfunctional relationship. It's not an unholy (so to speak) combination of a genetic/medical tendency toward illness that can't be helped -- and a weakness (even if unintentional) that perhaps can be helped, that allowed/allows one to slide into the illness (or an dysfunctional role in relating to the ill person).

Rather, depression is an illness where, even though the patient/consumer needs to be proactive in his/her own care and minimize (where possible) letting his/her moodiness affect loved ones, there was no moral "weakness" that allowed it to break through. To modify a rather ribald statement that is popular these days, DEPRESSION HAPPENS.

Besides, anyone who survives with this disease is strong by definition.

Ron - we do not have to deal with this alone, and there is always hope. I am not speaking of a "bright light" zap of a miraculous healing and total restoration. There are support groups out there (this blog included) where there is understanding & compassion. It's having the willingness (and boy that's a tough one when we can just about brush our teeth some days) to persue the avenues available. In spite of the stigmas that still exist, and because of them, there is an entire network at our disposal for connecting to someone who does truly get it and is willing to listen. On our end, it's also being willing to looking at suggestions and not closing our minds to all that crosses our paths. I understand the frustration on medication mixes and trials/attempts. Four years ago, the medication that I was on successfully for 10 years stopped working. One of my worst nightmares coming to life. So along with living with the hell of a relapse into an extremely deep depression (I was no Mary Poppins prior - but I lived a good life), I too had to go through the ardous, tedious, mindbending journey of a new fit for my body/brain in living better through different chemistry. It was horrendous. As we all know, the answer of which medication (or combinations of medications) at what doses, with what tolerable versus intolerable side effects come in to play. I felt like I had set up camp (once again) and pitched my tent in Hell. It was almost unbearable. There were circumstances in my life that also coincided with this period of time. Yes, there were times when I wanted to throw the prescription samples at the Doctor and tell him - "Enough - I'm done - no more", but I didn't. Now, I'm not saying that I'm Rebecca of SunnyBrook Farm, but not persuing the trials and errors of regaining some footing in the pharmaceutical end of this for me would have eventually ended in either an suicide or a nice long stay (hmmmm - sounds like a vacation) - at a psych ward. I'm not saying that everyone should be on meds; however, there are those who give up on the miracle of some hope and help too soon. So, if someone who's given up on the medication portion of assistance in their treatment regimen sees only more of the same in terms of deeper depression and hopelessness, I pray they give it another try, and another and another. Also, check oline for local support groups where you can meet people who have the common bond face to face. Some of my most precious relationships have formed that way - Including my husband, who/whom? (I'm too tired to express proper grammar) I met over 15 years ago in a room at a time where you don't think things like that happen. That's the nice chapter of the fairy tale pertaining to the the "good section" in my book of life.

I took Prozac for several years in increasing dosages after it would seem to stop helping after a time, I had become a total advocate of the pharnacuetical element of treatment coupled with the therapy which I continued to also persue. My sisters could always tell me when my dosage needed changing or when, in one of my spates of self-diagnosis and trearnent, I had stopped taking my pills because my persona was that different (frustrating) I went through the all-too-common periods of feeling 'guilty' for relying on a chemical to solve my problems (And me a child of the sixties, no less!)until I finally was able to believe this was indeed an illnesfors which required chemical balance which my poor brain couldn't restore on its own much in the same way the pancreas of a diabetic is unable to restore insulin production without help, dso that guilt would prompt ne to put the little pink and grey capsules away for awhile. Years later, after my stroke determined that I HAD(unknowingly) developed diabetes and I was sent to a neuropsychiatrist for evaluation of the damage incurred by the stroke and a suggestion for treatment of the accimpanying deficiencies, he informed me that often bi-polar depressives experience the merry-go-round of a medication needing to be frequently adjusted in order to work.(That, in fact, was one of the indicators he used in diagnosing me with bipolar rather than unipolar depression. According to this compassionate psychiatrist, who is reputed to be one of "the top" practitioners in the midwest, a bipolar patient placed on anti-depressants is actually at risk of exacerbating the condition and we frequently DO require continual increases in dosage in order for the meds to continue to help. In other words, those years of taking Prozac actually made my condition worse! regardless of how theyy seemed to provide relief for a while (SCARY) iNSTEAD, HE PUT ME ON A "cocktail" of a DIFFERENT antidepressent combined with a "mood stabalizer which seem to do the trick even though it also required several adjustments to find the correct combination for my wounded psyche. Apparently G.P.s who don't deal with bipolar disorders frequently are slow to differentiate between the differences between unipolar and bipolar conditions and therefore actually exacerbate the condition by prescribing the incorrect medications (ALSO SCARY...sigh!) My therapistt at the time( a fully licensed psychologist) didn't hold a medical degree, so she couldn't prescribe, but (with my permission) had consulted with my primary care physician in terms of prescribing the Prozac. as it turns out, i believe the bipolar diagnosis is incorrect since I (THANKFILLY) don't suffer bouts of mania per se,but the idea that there are so many inconsitencies even amongst the professionals to whom we look for help is truly frightening!
Throughout this time I was a practicing christian with an abiding faith, and I believe with all m heart that this is part(if not most0 of the reason that I managed to come through this period of "mis-medicating" fairly intact. After all,dn't we usually return misfiring automobiles (a much less complicated machine than the human mind)to the dealer or manufacturer to be fixed? Faith and prayer are two weapons in our arsenals which cannot be over-enphasized in my personal opinion. I do not, however, advocate throwing out all of the other weapons which help; an intelligent combination seems to work best for me!

Hi Therese and ALL,

I have to thank you for this incredible site. It gives us ALL an open perspective (if we are open to it, and can venture outside the “Forest”) on Life from afar, and that is a very worthwhile and invaluable commodity, to say the least. I realized, that it is not so important of and for each of our individual testimony, but the overall testimony. There is no one cure for these maladies that persecute us like an anchor dragging us to the bottomless pit, or an albatross of guilt hanging around our necks, that seems to be bred, and hammered into our psyche, since birth. As unique as we all are, the things that plague us are the same, and vary slightly, and there is not one cure for ALL, but a multitude of cures (except of course the “One“ cure, which a lot of us have a resistance to) It looks like we ALL have to take a personal evaluation, as to what would work best for us, and that would be in terms of fulfilling our dreams and goals in our particular Life. This is all about fulfilling your dreams, and you cannot allow anybody to keep you from that (and it is never too late to start ~ “Today is the first day, of the rest of your Life”) There is their truth, and your truth…and there is The Truth . . . The Truth of it is, God (if you believe there is a God) has given you the freewill to accomplish that end. As your dis-order, you are not really angry, suicidal, homicidal or de-pressed by nature, but there is a problem ,turning that key, pushing that button, driving you to that state … town, country, or relationship. If you can search out that problem and its driver, you just may be able to fire and re-hire a better staff or path.

“We are ALL sojourners along a Road Called Love”

How we get, there are many different Ways (more of God’s sense of humor I suspect, that nobody thinks is one dam bit funny … but God … and me !) We can travel separately, or we can go holding hands, along this Road Called Love . . . I kinda like holding hands . . . right ! childish (I prefer to think of it as “childlike” and as in “Come to Me like a child”)

LUV 2 ALL
Wisdum