Venlafaxine/Effexor XR…. Withdrawal is HELL!!!

So on a few occasions in the past I’ve made the mistake of missing a few doses of my antidepressant, which is Venlafaxine. I don’t miss doses intentionally, as I have had the GP say many times, try not to let this happen again.

It seems any time I have missed a few doses, the side effects get worse each time. The nightmares I must say are most definitely the worse part. They are so disturbing and distressing. Then I end up not wanting to go to sleep because I get anxious at the prospect of having more nightmares.

The side effects I have found the worst are the constant nausea, vommitting, headaches, upset stomach and of course those nightmares. I end up not being able to keep my food down a fair amount of the time and end up in the toilet soon after eating. The nightmares tend to get worse and worse the longer I am with out my antidepressants. I often will wake my partner up with my muffled screaming. Sometimes I have to force myself to stay awake for a bit just to ensure I don’t fall asleep and go back into the nightmare. There was one night I kept falling back to sleep into the same nightmare for a period of about 3 hours.

A couple of nights ago I had the worst nightmare ever. It was so bad I was trapped in it, it was the scarest experience I have ever had in my life. I have never been so scared in my life. I kept tryng to force myself to wake up and eventually succeeded. But it was so traumatic the nightmare, I was fighting my body trying to stay awake and I was convinced that the thinking I was awake was a trap and that I was still in impending danger. I have never experienced sleep parylsis, but what I felt seems possibly like that. I was afraid to move, afraid to talk and even afraid to try wake my partner up. It all felt like a trap. Like I was being tricked into thinking I was awake but they were still out to get me, the people in my nightmare. I legit thought I was going to die in this nightmare and I was convinced it was real and I was going to die. When I was awake, it seemed like I was still partly in REM sleep, as my eyes were doing this weird speedy blinking thing, like that which they do when you are in REM sleep. I had to force myself not to close my eyes. As it felt like my mind was trying to get me back into the nightmare. I know I already said this, but I have never been so scared!

I did get my medication a couple of days ago, but I am still suffering some of the side effects. I still feel ill, still being vommitting, have a slight headache, can’t eat much that will stay down. I’ve also been so tired all of the time.

The problem with withdrawal and how fast all those symptoms return that lead you to needing antidepressants return, is that you no longer know if you are still unwell or not. Also, the fear of relapse and the horrible withdrawal makes you shit scared of even trying to get off them.

Venlafaxine definitely does the job of helping me cope and does take the edge off everything. I wouldn’t say it is a cure all. I do appreciate that you are still able to feel your emotions and still feel like ‘YOU’. But it doesn’t by any stretch of imagination stop me getting depressed, getting suicidal, feeling anxious or getting overwhelmed. It does take the edge off all of that.

I knew nightmares was a common theme on Venlafaxine and came to discover they are common if you miss doses. I wasn’t aware though, how common knowledge all the other shitty symptoms are. Especially when it comes to talking to pharmasists and GP’s.

I was recently chatting to a friend of mine who had a partner who used to be on Venlafaxine and he was telling me what hell she went through trying to come off this. And she did it by the book and the way your GP will tell you to come off it and cut it down slowly. She experienced horrific nightmares, intense emotions, suidical desires.

It’s like being stuck between a rock and a hard place with Venlafaxine. Like do I ever dare risk trying to come off it? Will I cope? Can I cope? As I NEVER want to repeat last weeks experience with that nightmare I mentioned earlier.

I actually can not handle going through that again. And the toll it takes on you is horrible. Sleep is not restful at all at those times. It seems like no matter how much you sleep, you never get caught up. I have spent the last 2 weeks feeling ill as, constantly tired and feeling so crap.

It’s such an emotional rollercoaster! Between being tearful, ultra sensitive and just irritable and agro.

While I was waiting to see the GP on Monday I was getting so over waiting. The GP was running 1/2 an hour late and I was getting pissy that I was not told they were that behind. I was going between wanting to cry for no reason, feeling panicked and distressed just because someones young son was crying. I would want to just walk out at times as I found it hard to just sit there with all my feelings. I was getting so fucked off having to wait. I was so relieved when I finally got to see the GP. As I was getting very aggitated by her running late.

I have done a small amount of research of venlafaxine withdrawal and I never knew how common it is to feel all this withdrawal hell. In fact I saw an image on Pinterest that way titled “Venlafaxine Withdrawal Hell”. That’s a very accurate description for sure.

I do sometimes feel pressure from some people in my life who are anti medication to get off meds. But also I push the fact maybe they just need to accept that I might always need to be on antidepressants and that should be ok.

The GP said to me regarding my concern over whether I might be ok mentally without medication and that the withdrawals, at least wait until I am feeling more stable before exploring that, which makes sense.

I have not blogged for ages it seems. I just don’t allow myself the time to sit down and blog. I always have that anxiety there is something else I should be doing. Or I just don’t have the motivation to even try.

Anyway, still feeling pretty nauseous, so might go eat some food.

Thanks for reading 🙂

Moods/Emotions

Honestly I have no idea what is up with me the last few months.

My emotions have been a bloody rollercoaster! I feel like I’m constantly in a bad mood, or sensitive mood. I feel jumpy and anxious. I get upset so easily. I get irritated so easily.

I feel nearly constant fatigue which sucks. As it gives me very little motivation.

Totally hating my body. Of course it is my fault it is like this. I do end up being slack and ignoring my diet to some degree. I’m sure my diet probably isn’t helping with the above matters.

I just feel like something is up with me. I don’t feel these moods are normal or healthy.

It’s not been an easy last few months. We have had 3 of our pet rats pass away. Well 1 of them we had put to sleep. It’s been hard in different ways losing them each. The first one was quite traumatic to be honest. She had a tumour, which we had paid $300 for the vet to remove, but it came back within a few weeks and far worse. She started biting on it and causing it to bleed a lot and within 2 days of her doing this, she started fading pretty fast. On her last day, my partner handed her to me, as his Dad took him out for coffee and within a minute of being given her, I knew something was up and she was very rapidly fading away and went floppy. I tried to give her mouth to mouth, with no success and before I knew it she was gone. I was distraught. I still held on to her for several hours afterwards, giving her snuggles.

Then a week or so after that, we had to have our oldest rat put down, who was our first rat. As he also had a tumour and had been biting on it and it just kept spreading and he ending up being in a lot of pain. So we took him to the vet and had him put to rest. That too was traumatic in it’s own way. Mostly the handing him over to the vet and him trying to reach back to us. You kind of feel like you are betraying their trust.

The last rat we lost, she was our 2nd rat, the oldest female rat. She seemed to have a small lump, but I think it was doing it’s damage internally to be honest. I think over the period of about a week, she just seemed to be getting slower and weaker. Though she was still defying odds and leaping around and attempting to be lively til the very end. Even going for a burst down the driveway only 1/2 an hour before she passed away. I’d say her passing was easier to deal with, as we knew she was going that way, so we had time to come to grips with the fact she would be leaving us.

I think to some degree I am still somewhat numb to all the loss. I’m just in general very low and sensitive.

I guess I should go to the GP at some point and see if there is actually any reason behind these moods and low energy.

I think I will leave this post at that. I don’t feel like I have much else to say at the moment.

Thanks for reading

So much going on in my head

It’s been a little while since I blogged last.

My oldest daughter ended up moving to Wellington 9 days ago.  As the new school in Wellington felt it was more beneficial for her to start this year in the remaining few weeks.  As that gives her more opportunities to reconnect with old friends from her old school in Wellington.

So I have been depressed every since the day she moved up there.  I think I was just keeping up a front for her until then.  I did not want her worrying about me as well as having her own anxieties.  I think I have cried every day since she moved.

I’ll be honest, I am angry at my husband.  I feel this is all on him and him not trying hard enough while she was still living with us.

She did ask me to break up with him in the weeks leading up to her move.

With her being gone, it is like half of me is gone.  My heart is most definitely broken with her not here.

I am glad that she is happy and she will have a happier life.  I was relieved to  hear that her first week at the new school went really well and I was happy seeing her happy when I skyped with her last night.

But the reality is, she is my first born and was my only child for 6 1/2 years and she will always be so special to me because of that.

I do love my younger 2 children of course.

I have been a huge mess mentally.  Feeling like I am not present in my life.  Like I am on auto pilot and just going through the motions.  I have been feeling very detached and like I have not been participating in life.  I do feel a certain degree of dissociation.

I have felt like dying or cutting or overdosing several times in the past 9 days.  On one particular night I was lying in bed wanting to go cut my wrists and I was trying to think of how I could do that without ruining my tattoos and since I could not come up with a way that would not ruin my tattoos, I decided not to.  So my tattoos are definitely a life saver at times.

I was thinking about overdosing on my sleeping tablets on Friday night.

So yeah, I am struggling A LOT.

I am feeling pretty miserable persistently.  My joy is non-existent.

I have been making bad choices for sure.  Drinking a fair bit.

Trying to explain my feelings, emotions and struggles can be difficult at times, but I always persist in trying my best to explain them.

Like I get that it is hard for my Mum to know I am still struggling big time with depression and I know she worries.  I have had this line from both her and my husband lately “it’s been over 2 years, you should be over this already”.  Yeah, top of the list of thing’s not to say to someone struggling with mental illness.

So I did my best to try and explain to my Mum that sometimes when people break mentally, they may never be the same as they were before that mental break and that time has nothing to do with it.  And I explained how my reaction to stress and distress has changed and how it is so much harder to manage my emotions now and regulate them and how I have less resilience to things then I used to.

I feel like my husband is over it.  I do regularly tell him he is free to go find someone who is not me with my issues.  Plus I am so sick of his fucken gaming and streaming and the amount of time devoted to that.  I just do not give a shit about my relationship anymore.  I’m over it.

He has his own issues and I am in no place to live with them and through them and support him.  They are too complex for me and quite frankly some of his issues come out very negatively and I do not like being around that.

I have spent a fair amount of time away from the house in the evening.  As that is when I feel at my worst and miss my oldest daughter the most.

Home is not where my heart is.  My heart is with my girl in Wellington.

I am truly heartbroken.

Just thinking about this and writing about this makes me extremely emotional and cry.

I LOVE HER SO MUCH!!!

And damn it, I have no alcohol to drink to numb these feelings and this pain.  Not that that is sensible or wise.

I have even been trying to find people to shout me some pot, with no success.  And I had not touched that for like 6 years, up until last week.  I got rather stoned off my face last week.  On the plus side I slept well LOL!

The only thing’s I enjoy lately is alcohol, seeing my best friend, being away from the house and the love of my children.

I’m sure there was more on my mind, but I feel I should go to bed now.  As I have been getting to bed way too late for ages.

Thank you for reading and following.

 

It’s me again

I’ve been wanting to post since the last time I posted, but haven’t found the time. And I’ve had a lot on my mind to post about. But with my ill mental health, the short term memory has been going bye bye again. Which is so frustrating! As I know I had something important and significant I wanted to post about earlier this week, but it has since left my mind. And I know as much as it was really important and significant, but I can not remember what it was. Grr!

So the visit from the Cyfs (child, youth & family) social worker wasn’t too bad.

My CMH(community mental health) case manager however, was a real let down. He arrived late, as usual and because my mood was okish when he visited, he didn’t bother discussing anything about the past week, that he said he’d talk with me about when he visited. He didn’t appear to care about my phone calls to the mental health crisis line or my unstable, very concerning moods and unhealthy feelings and thoughts. He pretty much just talked about the transfer to the Hutt Valley CMH(community mental health) and left after only 15 minute’s.

I am really disappointed with my fiancés family. They have not given us any more support, even with them knowing how bad my mental health is. And they haven’t looked after the kids on the weekends last week or are planning to this week. So I am really angry and upset with them. As it seems to me like they only offered support as of the day of the family group conference, as a way to keep us in Wellington and to make themselves look good.

I feel really unsupported here in Wellington. I feel like, what the hell was the point of moving to Wainuiomata. As it was supposed to be for the extra support from my fiancés family and so we’d be closer to them to make it easier on us and for us to get the support we need.

It is so damn hard for me not having my family in the same city as me. As I need them and they genuinely care and are truly there for us. They are selfless, instead of selfish, like my fiancés family.

My mental health has been really bad since I posted last. I have wanted to self-harm every day and have been self-harming quite often. I have felt rage and anger way more often. I have wanted to runaway so desperately. My moods are so unstable. I feel trapped, lost and unsupported. I am really depressed and unhappy.

Yesterday has to have been one of the worst day’s yet. As I wanted to slap my toddler and had to tell my fiancé to take her to another room, so I didn’t act on that desire. I even had to lock myself outside to keep myself and her safe and get away from the stress and distress she was causing me.

Things have been really tense at home lately. My fiancé has been more stressed and I feel, he has been quite anti our daughter and rejecting her a lot. Getting angry and moody at her and treating her like an inconvenience. And being intolerant with our baby at times.

I have been really moody and anti my fiancé lately and snapping at him a lot.

It’s just been this vicious circle of moods, anger, tense and high emotions. It’s been horrible!

Last night, I can’t remember what exactly provoked this, but my fiancé said that I haven’t looked after our son at all in the past nearly 6 month’s. Which is so not true! As I looked after him the whole time my fiancé was at work and every day, except when I was in hospital and at respite and up until my mental health got really bad at the end of October.

That was extremely hurtful him saying that and I felt so hurt and disrespected.

I reacted by packing a bag for my daughter and I and sneaking out of the house when I knew my fiancé was on the computer with headphones on, so I knew he couldn’t hear me packing or leaving.

I didn’t care about the consequences. I felt rejected and disrespected and extremely hurt. As well as feeling my fiancé was rejecting and anti our daughter. So I did what is my default coping mechanism and tried to runaway from my problems.

I took all the money out of our account and also out of my fiancés account, which was what was left of his birthday and xmas money and paid for a ticket for the ferry, for our daughter, the car and myself and for petrol. As I intended to go to Nelson.

I turned my phone off so my fiancé couldn’t get hold of me and only turned it on to check an email regarding the ferry. And when I turned it on I had several missed calls from him and each time he tried to call, I’d disconnect the call.

So I was sitting in the car, our daughter asleep in the car, waiting for the ferry check in. Eventually after some text’s back and forth and my fiancé threatening to report the car as stolen. I agreed to come home. As he said he’d talk with me about everything. During all this time and the majority of the drive home, I was bawling my eye’s out.

So we did some talking once I got home. And I expressed that this just goes to show how bad my mental health is and how desperately in need of therapy I am.

My fiancé only realized this afternoon that I had taken not only our money, but his money as well and he got really angry.

I said “yeah well why did you think I was so resistant about coming home?” As I knew how bad what I’d done was.

I find it incredibly frustrating, how my fiancé goes from being on the same page as me regarding his family and being all anti me and suggesting I’m the one with the problem and I’m being paranoid.

I mean, make up your mind already and be consistent! You are either supporting me and on my side, or you’re not! Stopping bloody flipping between the 2!

Regarding where we are living. I keep feeling this feeling of unease and very up in the air.

I feel like my intuition is telling me something. As if it knows my fiancés family were going to do this and that this plan formulated at the family group conference, would not last that long and that it would very fast fall apart. And that a lot of my panic and anxiety about moving was also telling me of things to come.

I am really looking forward to moving to Nelson when the time comes. And am really looking forward to being closer to my family.

Well I’d better get some sleep. Might post some more tomorrow.

21st December 2013

Wow! It’s almost 2014!

Right, so the last time I posted I was on the ferry to Picton, so I could go to Nelson for a few days. The ferry was delayed by 90 minutes in the end. So I missed the bus I was supposed to catch and ended up stranded at the Bluebridge ferry terminal for several hours. Which didn’t help my anxiety and panic. But I managed to keep it in and not show it outwardly. Though naturally I didn’t get a bit shaky after a few hours and nearly was in tears. It didn’t help that the bus company couldn’t care less. They had my money and didn’t care that I was left stranded. They wouldn’t even give a refund or offer me a free trip the next day. Thankfully Bluebridge cares about people and did everything they could to help me, even though they’d done their part, in getting me to Picton. They ended up getting one of their staff to drive me to Nelson, which I was SO thankful for. It just sucked that I had less time in Nelson due to all that.

I stayed at my younger sister’s place on the Saturday night. Which is in 88 Valley, which is just past Wakefield, in the Nelson area. It was so far out of town that there was no phone or reception on my mobile. And no internet. As the house where my sister lives is an old villa, which is over 100 yrs old. So the lines are too old to be able to connect a landline or internet. And only her mobile which is on a different provider to mine would get reception and mobile data connection in certain parts of her house. But not having internet or phone coverage on my mobile wasn’t such a bad thing. It allows you to chill out more and rest and just be.

A funny thing that happened though, was me getting a tad lost. I went for a walk from my sister’s house, trying to get reception and head into Wakefield. I thought I was going the right way, but after 20 or so minutes of walking, I was starting to consider that maybe I wasn’t. I walked for so long, that the tree line ended and I went from walking on a gravel road to a clay road. Once I got reception I decided to stop wandering. And being I’d had no cell phone coverage til then, a whole bunch of texts came in at once. One from my sister asking where I was. Too which I replied “I think I’m a bit lost”. So she had to come find me and give me a ride back to her place.

Then on Sunday night I stayed at my older sister’s place. It was good to spend some time with my sisters and my niece’s and nephew.

I must have a thing for getting lost lately. As when I got to Picton and was dropped at bus stop, I must’ve gone the wrong way and ended walking all the way through the town centre to the ferry terminal.

Waiting for the boarding call seemed to take ages and I was getting increasingly anxious the longer I waited. I got quite bored on the ferry trip back to Wellington and kept pacing around the various observation decks for a good hour. Seems I did a lot of walking in the last week.

I thought I was doing pretty OK. We found a place to move into and it’s better then where we live now. Where we live now is a 2 storey townhouse with 3 bdrms and it’s a middle one, with each townhouse attached by 3. It has a field, playground and pool and is a private grove, with a speed limit of 5km. But there is 1 person on our street who drives at speed regularly. She’s lucky she has not hit a child! These houses were built in 1979 and ours has had barely any maintenance and no renovations. As our landlord likes to collect the rent, yet not maintain the property. Very frustrating!

The place we are moving to is a 4 bdrm house, with a fully fenced yard, a garage and a heat pump and only $320 per week.

Anyway, as I was saying, we found this place, got accepted and I was doing well. Then the same night, I found myself feeling stressed and panicked. The next day, which was yesterday, we signed the tenancy agreement and all was good, but come evening, I suddenly became really upset and couldn’t stop crying for an hour or so. Then I was finding myself feeling ansty towards my fiancé and feeling like leaving him and just living with my 2 daughter’s. Which of course is not possible, as cyfs say I’m unfit to. I don’t know what it is lately. Maybe it’s because they are males, my fiancé and son. Maybe it’s something that was provoked in me when I had Dylan. I still feel at times like he’s not mine and I didn’t give birth to him and like he’s just a cute baby who lives with me.

I found my moods unstable and disturbing last night. As, even though I wasn’t dealing with Dylan, his whinging provoked distress and stressed me and I felt like I wanted to hurt him, to shut him up. That thought scared me, even if I didn’t ever plan to act on it. I was also feeling enraged and wanting to smash cupboards and doors. I hate it when my mood goes unstable like that. It really concerns and scares me.

I was in tears later yesterday evening, thinking back about those thoughts and feelings.

I feel like, how can I get the therapy I need and work through my issues truly, if in the back of my mind I know my privacy and confidentiality can be breached if a therapist thinks there is a risk to myself or my children. Even if there is no plan to action the concerning thoughts. As one thing I have learned through my dealings with Community Mental Health and Cyfs, is that being honest can be used against you and nothing I say to my Psychiatrist or case manager at CMH(community mental health) can I be assured will be kept private. And this knowledge makes me wonder, how I’m supposed to work through things and get better, through resolving and working through things. I feel like I can’t trust anyone with any of these things anymore. That any mention or thoughts that concern me will be taken as fact and not been seen for what the are, which is thoughts that highlight the fact I have issues that need to be explored and worked through.

I also feel like, if I need any respite in the future, that will be used against me too.

Yeah, so, that’s what going on in my head lately.

One thing I have come to discover about my anxiety is that energy drinks and anxiety are a bad mix. As energy drinks seem to provoke my anxiety. Well all except sugar free Red Bull.

So, currently feeling anxious again. So maybe that was the coke. So maybe I need to avoid that too.

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading 🙂