Backsliding

[Liberalynn]

2. I have Chronic Depression and Anxiety Disorder

which have never fully gone into remission. There are times when they both are like 75 percent under my control and then other times when I still just bottom out to the lowest end of the scale. That has in the past led me to not being able to function properly and in the worse case scenarios to full blown major depressive episodes. The Drs. and therapists have pretty much helped me recognize when I am starting to go towards the lower half of the scale, and told me to let them know when that is happening, and I am starting to see and feel the signs now. They hope they can intervene to keep me out of the MDE stage.

Luckily I don't get auditory or visual hallucinations. What happens instead is I get so anxious and worried about things that I can't concentrate on anything else and it affects my ability to get anything done and my sleep patterns. I can get to sleep but then I wake up scared and start worrying and can't get back to sleep. Then after so many nights of this I just get so physically and mentally exhausted I start crying, I isolate myself, loose my appetite, my interests, and pretty much just curl myself up into a non functioning ball.

The Doc said they have found that when you are already on an Anti Depressant, but you still feel significantly depressed that sometimes a really small dose of Abilify can get you over the remaining hump and keep you from sliding all the way back down and in some cases have caused full remission. I just am afraid of all the side effects they mention in their commercial. She says the dose I would be getting is minimal so it shouldn't really cause any of those.

The Hydroxizine though has helped me sleep better in the past though and it always made me very drowsy, so I am hoping I can just take it at night and get a full night's rest, so maybe I can get the fear and the sadness back under control again and then the Abilify option won't need to be considered. The Doc agrees it might work so I am crossing my fingers that it does. I have been off of it now for two years because I was doing pretty good on just the Effexor, but not so much anymore.

Thank you for posting back to me.