Search the Community

Hello, I'm wondering if anyone of you have any advice or can relate to my situation. I've been suffering from depression recurrently for 10 years and whilst there have been periods in my life when I've felt more anxious frequently these have been manageable until quite recently. After experience intense anxiety episodes I have now been off of work for nearly 4 weeks trying to fix myself. I've received cognitive behavioural therapy in the past for depression and am pulling on every technique I can for support. My biggest frustration is that whenever I visit the doctor and ask for help they offer little assistance other than increasing my medication, which has been altered 3 times this year yet I am still getting worse. They do not seem to recognise that this anxiety is a new and very challenging symptom for me. They keep saying it's a symptom of my depression and that I need the right balance of medicatio, then happily sign me off of work. I've also previously mentioned that I am concerned I may have bipolar disorder type 2, but they've basically told me unless I do something crazy,like try to kill myself I cannot be referred for psychiatric assessment. The trouble is when my behaviour is fluctuating there's no way I would visit a doctor, it's only in hindsight when I seem to regulate or become more depressed that I can identify hypomanic style behavioural trends. I'm so frustrated and unhappy with feeling like I'm not being heard or offered constructive support that will help me level out that I'm tempted to do something stupid so that they finally hear my struggle and somedays I'm not sure I'd even care if it all just ended. I'm trying so hard to maintain a normal life but it's getting harder and harder. I'm exhausted of the effort and I can feel that I'm loosing. Somedays I can barely get out of bed, let alone leave the house. How do I get the support I need before I loose the energy to fight for myself? Stephanie Jayne