When I read other people’s descriptions of depression it doesn’t seem to match up with mine. I had my pre-first psychotic episode depression which felt like an intense heaviness on my chest and emptiness and took away my ability to speak and made me isolate myself
Then there’s my post first psychotic episode depression and it’s just pure hell. When I am in a depressive episode it literally feels like my spirit has been plunged into boiling water. All I can think about is how much pain I am in. It is PAINFUL. I don’t see people using this to describe depression, people say they feel empty or hopeless or worthless or that the world seems grey, but for me it’s just PAIN someone said a phrase like “psychic agony” once and that’s what it is. Pain so bad it’s like nothing else matters aside from stopping the pain which is why I get so many suicidal thoughts. Because I am in so much pain my functioning drops drastically because everything becomes too overwhelming due to the amount of pain I am in. Does anyone else get this?? This immense pain that deprives you of rational thought??
What you’re describing sounds more like either borderline pd or a mixed state than straightforward depression. My mixed states are very much like that, enough to send me screaming to the doctor now that I’m grown up, and enough to send me running for sharp objects for cutting when I had poorer coping skills.
It also made me not recognize depression when it came more quietly. I figured that if it wasn’t accompanied by psychic sturm and drang, it didn’t count. But I had years of no energy, hopelessness, self-loathing, emptiness, a general belief that I was useless and poorly made and destined for failure. It was a low-key sort of thing, and I saw no point in getting help for it because it all seemed like a rational assessment of what I was.
Yes, that is pretty much me. I feel like my whole life is awful and and everything is just dealing with the awfulness. Also feel worthless, useless, like I’m a burden on everyone. I just can’t see how things would ever get better either. So, I think of suicide - when I’m depressed that is.
For me, years in the chronic state, weeks to months in the acute psychotic state. I don’t tolerate a mixed episode for more than several days before I crack and get help.
If it lasted for only a day or a couple of hours, I’d consider it a mood fluctuation rather than an episode.
For me, an episode can last for a few days to a month for the general feelings of being down, then it dips very low within that period for 30min - 1hour or so (during the 30min - 1hour time I have the suicidal thoughts).
I feel emotions very powerfully. After my first psychotic episode I basically became like a raw nerve. All my emotions became too strong and overwhelming. Even environmental things became too strong and overwhelming like sounds and lights and smells, even physical sensations like touch started to strongly irritate/startle or upset me. I don’t know why this happened. I was not this way at all before my first episode.
I do, too, though for me it was like that since birth and then compounded by c-ptsd. My mom and co-person also both believe that my senses are abnormally acute. Life just seems to be far more intense for me than it is for most people.
At about the age you are now, I started cobbling together my own version of mindfulness-based cbt, which helps immensely with my reactions to my emotions. Now, for the most part, I have the intense emotion and let it pass, rather than submerging myself in it. If I’m unable to do that, though, psychosis starts to manifest.
The depression is still very real and disabling. Over this summer, we tried reducing my AD dose and after a couple of weeks, I was a useless, incapable loser again who backed out of every commitment and was destined for a life of failure. I’ve resumed my old dose but am still not wholly recovered.
When I first saw my APN she said I had ptsd. Later when I did my partial hospitalization and the psychiatrist there contacted her to talk about me she told him I just had major depression with psychotic features. I asked her about this later and she told me that was my diagnosis and acted like she had completely forgotten she had ever said I had ptsd in the first place. This was baffling to me as to me it was clear as day that I had been deeply traumatized by my experiences and had all the symptoms of ptsd, I had even been relieved upon finally getting the diagnosis only for it to vanish for no discernible reason.
I say mine lasts an hour usually but i think it’s part of a mixed episode. I feeel more anxious than crying all the time but with manic symptoms. I’m trying to work it out myself. I doubt I have rapid cycling. Mixed makes sense right now.
I totally rejected the c-ptsd label when I got it - I thought it was only for soldiers or people who watched others die violently. I had been physically and emotionally abused, neglected, bullied, left to spend weekends in parking garages because my stepmom didn’t want us in the house, raped, kept in small rooms and only let out to use the bathroom, forbidden to contact my mom or my friends, etc etc etc, but somehow this never registered with me as trauma
Anyway, I’m not qualified to diagnose, but particularly the heightened emotional reactivity could point to trauma. But when I asked my doctor/therapist for my diagnosis, she actually had to drag out her notes to figure out what she’d written down. It’s so important to us, but I think a lot of doctors look at it mainly as a code for billing insurance. They deal with the symptoms rather than the diagnosis.
Sorry to hear little rhubot had to go through all of that. I also used to think I didn’t “deserve” the ptsd label and felt guilty for even feeling traumatized by what had happened.
I think the most frustrating thing is that I got to this point where I felt like I had healed and like I was ready to move on with my life. But even though I felt that way, my brain hadn’t healed and still had the emotional issues, sensitivity to environment/heightened threat response, random rage and irritability issues, etc. And it upsets me because I don’t know if that will ever go away or if that’s just permanently my brain now.
That’s interesting. You described my severe episodes perfectly but I would call it psychosis because it is accompanied by delusional thinking. I don’t have them anymore but when I had them it was the worst experience of my life. I am really sorry you have to go through this. Have you ever tried any of the older generation anti-psychotics? I am considering haldol, depending on what my doctor says.
Yes, that’s how I describe my worst depression. I get really suicidal during those times, as well. I used to self harm when I got into that kind of emotional pain. The physical pain was easier to focus on than the emotional pain.
My depression sometimes gets intense emotionally and I get the urge to cut but it doesn’t last long.
I usually just feel this deadness and loss of motivation, emotion and pleasure. When i cant cry, when i just lie on floor and stare into space. That is chronic especially off my meds. Probably more negative symptoms than depression.
