That dam diagnosis has come up again in my latest psychiatrist session.

Treatment Resistant Depression. Thank you.

This really makes me wonder if I should keep trying. Or should I just float off into the darkness the place where my demons danced with me and I knew them all by name.
Why is it that I’m am pushing and trying to make myself better but I keep hitting a wall a huge wall that begins in the depths of hell and reaches the atmosphere but continues to build towards the stars I so desperately WISH I could touch.
This awfully resistant depression is putting me at risk.
I have started drinking a little which is out of the norm if I go off my past year and putting myself in danger and I just don’t care. The risk of me running myself off the road has tripled in the last 6 weeks and I’m not talking about it with MC.  I know the rest of my family don’t need my bipolarness to interrupt their happenings so I’m bottling it up and it’s now on the simmer inside.
I have an anger inside me that creeps just in my peripheral. I have anxiety spitting all over my day.
I have depression and it covers me, a heavy blanket that I can’t get out from under.

I’m crying over the stupidest things, I don’t even have the words to explain what it is that gets to me. There is a compacting feeling on my heart but it vibrates through my head. I will have a thought and it will start out innocent and quite meaningless but within those few seconds of this initial thought my world is suffocating me and I all I can do is let the tears flow. This sucks! I have no control over it. I called MC from work a few days ago but all I could say was ‘I’m not feeling well, but I will be ok’. Again, this is bullshit. Who am I trying to convince? I will be ok?

Having someone say to you that you are nearly out of medical resources and that I will have to consider putting myself forward to be a guinea pig for trial medications and treatment doesn’t make me feel confident that I will, be ok.

Why do I have to be so difficult? This road I am on not only makes it hard to continue relationships, create friendships, hold onto my family ties but with my sadness and madness my mind has made me resistant, yep seriously resistant. It is exasperating where do I go from here?

In this last appointment, we discussed new medication and some trial treatments to help stabilize me. The medication DR has said would be his top choice is called Abilify. It is and anti-psychotic medication used in the treatment  of conditions and disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. It can also be used in conjunction with other medications for the treatment of major depression. Abilify is $130 a month not being on the PBS and it would be an additive to the Lamotrigine.

So presently I am on Lamotrigine 200mg in the morning and we saw good changes in me. I am also on Imrest 7.5mg at night to basically knock me out. “Highly addictive” especially when you sleep and don’t have hideous nightmares. I try not to take it every night or halve the dose but the sleep is very tempting. I have been on Panadeine Forte for far too long and was recently put on Palexia SR 150mg for my back which is a whole other story. This is $55 a month on medications to keep me here.  Money does play a factor in my worries and the guilt I have spending $55 on myself and not on the kids creates anxiety, adding $130 to that would take food off the table. And now the tears roll again. I am trying to do what is right and I know where I want to be but again being told I am running out of options is horrific especially when I am already so low. I know DRs intentions are to help me but Treatment Resistance really is a hard thing to hear.

I’m worried that the spin cycle that I am in is going to break me again, I’m going to end up in the ward and jeopardize my job which is paying for my medications this is a vicious cycle.  I am nearly 2 years out from the last round of ECT and this is a similar pattern to how I ended up in the ward in 2015.  I know that I don’t want ECT again although it does work and I know I am at risk, very high risk of relapse.

Worst of all I can see all this happening I am disembodied yet I’m still under this blanket and it’s swallowing me up. I am conflicted and frustrated. I am angry. I am supposed to be moving forward but the sadness just lingers like stale smoke in a closed bar.

The depressive parts of me are overwhelming and whatever the trigger was that set me off this time I will have to keep trying to step forward. Although I have been deemed Treatment Resistant no one can say I am not resilient I go down but I am always climbing back up.