#treatment resistant

[growing-home]

i spent nearly two decades of my life severely depressed and suicidal and for so long i believed wholeheartedly that it was my fault. i believed that the reason no medication or therapy had ever worked for my depression was because i wasn’t ACTUALLY depressed— i believed i was just lazy, bad, manipulative, and just using depression as an excuse for the inherent badness i thought was inside me. this was a story that was told to me and reinforced over and over again by treatment providers.

this past summer, i tried my 30th+ psychiatric medication, not expecting to see any results. the day i realized it was working was the day i realized that i was…planning my future???suddenly i no longer wanted to stay in bed all day and never go outside. i no longer wanted to isolate. i wanted to see people, talk to people! i started spending more time with friends and facetiming people and talking on the phone, things that i rarely did in the past. when i had been depressed, the only movies/tv shows i could focus on were super intense, fast paced, and scary or disturbing because that was the only way to hold my attention. after starting this medication, i started enjoying SITCOMS! i no longer felt like i was fighting to just get through every single day of my life.

there was such a clear and measurable difference in the quality of my life that i started to question why i believed that my depression had been my fault. it became very clear to me that a large part of my depression had been biological. i had not been lazy or bad. i had been sick. my brain was sick the same way other organs get sick sometimes. this brought up a lot of grief for me— grief for all the lost time that i’d spent trying to find something that worked, grief for how much pain i had been in for so long. but it also brought up sheer FURY at all of the therapists and psychiatrists who had treated me like i just wasn’t trying hard enough to get better.

i had been labeled treatment resistant, of course, and the only recommendations i had received after being given that label were TMS, Ketamine, and ECT. once i had tried all three with no success, i believed i was just a lost cause. i thought i was out of options. i was made to feel that way by so many treatment professionals. i was told that nothing was working because of my complex trauma and that once i healed from that then i would stop being depressed (as if it’s that easy to just fully recover from CPTSD!) i was told that i just needed to do more DBT, i just needed to live and breathe DBT skills and then i would get better, even though i’d done intensive DBT programs for years with no improvement to my depression. (yes, it helped me to change my behavior and quit self harm, but behavior change isn’t necessarily indicative of a change in mood. i could do all the right things all the time and still be in excruciating mental pain.)

i was told that i just wasn’t trying hard enough, or that i must have a personality disorder, or that i just needed to exercise more, or eat less, or eat MORE, or eat differently, or get a job, or get a dog, or do yoga, or acupuncture, or biofeedback, or find purpose in my life— psychiatrist after psychiatrist looked for something to blame everywhere but in the mirror. instead of admitting that they weren’t equipped to help me, they made me believe that it was MY fault i wasn’t getting better. and i believed them. for SO long, i believed them.

and now after finding a medication that works for me, i see everything so much more clearly. psychiatrists need to put their enormous egos aside and actually treat patients with treatment resistant depression instead of blaming us for suffering from a (partially at least) biological illness. if you’re a doctor and you know that a patients illness is outside of the scope of your abilities, either do more research and get more training to help them or refer them to someone who specializes in what they need. don’t keep them around letting them pay you thousands of dollars while you make them try the same thing over and over and over again and expect to get a different result. people act like things like ECT are a last resort option, and in doing so make people believe that if it doesn’t help then you’re out of options. but nobody ever tried me on tricyclics. nobody tried me on MAOIs. nobody told me about how some dopamine agonists like Pramipexole have had some success in treating treatment resident depression. instead i was made to feel like asking to not be suicidal daily was asking for too much. if you’re a clinician who thinks that’s asking for too much, you’re in the wrong profession. we can do better than that. we NEED to do better than that.

in my experience, out of every profession, doctors have some of the biggest egos i’ve ever seen. i say this as someone who is both mentally ill as well as physically disabled. many doctors HATE it when you do your own research. they HATE it when you have suggestions, or when you ask for what you need. it’s almost as if they feel threatened by it, like they need to believe that they are superior to their patients because of how much time and money and energy they put into going to med school— they need to believe they hate their hard work was worth it so they have a tendency to dismiss any ideas their patients might have. i don’t care how many years you’ve been in school. you do not get to tell your sick patients that it’s their fault they’re sick to justify your laziness and refusal to learn new things. put away your god complex and actually listen to your patients.

and the strangest part to me is that the longer you have been suicidal for, the less seriously they take it. the same way that the more chronically ill you are the less people believe you. it’s bizarre— when people see pain that is beyond what they can fathom, instead of feeling empathy, they tell you you must be faking it or that you must be looking for attention. i’ll never understand this. it’s as if they think that suicidality doesn’t need to be taken seriously unless the patient has successfully completed suicide. and i think it’s very clear how that logic is flawed. i was treated like i just wanted attention whenever i asked for help with my chronic suicidality and it made me terrified to ask for help with ANYTHING. i still constantly am afraid that if i’m too honest with clinicians then they’ll think i just want attention. attention isn’t a bad thing to want, all human beings need some degree of attention, but regardless that doesn’t negate the severity of a person’s suicidality. i wasn’t attention seeking by asking for help. i was STRONG. i was really fucking strong, far stronger than i should’ve had to be. i fought for my life every single day and i am lucky to still be here but it’s not luck that got me here. it’s ME that got me here.

i don’t want to make it sound like i speak for everyone who has suffered from TRD, because i don’t think that would be fair. i can’t tell you if there’s a med out there that’ll work for you. all i can tell you is that most psychiatrists prematurely tell chronically suicidal patients that there is nothing they can do to help them or that they’re out of medication options. if you’re a psychiatrist or doctor and you feel yourself getting defensive while reading this, i invite you to get curious about where that activation is coming from.

and if you are someone with treatment resident depression or chronic suicidality reading this, i am telling you now: your illness is not your fault. i don’t know if it’s going to get better or not, but i can promise you— it is not your fault and it never has been.

[some-stars]

[THIS POST IS NOT MEDICAL ADVICE. TALK TO A PSYCHIATRIST.]

if you have treatment-resistant depression and you've been on every SSRI and SNRI available, you tried abilify and seroquel and rexulti, you tried TMS and ketamine and basically every single option short of ECT, or maybe you did try ECT and that didn't help either, you've done inpatient and partial hospitalization and intensive outpatient and none of it did shit: you want to try Auvelity.

i can't guarantee it'll work, obviously, but that was my exact situation for over six years and Auvelity literally Saved Me. in two months my PHQ-9 went from 21 to 3. it went on the market in 2022 so your doctor may not know about it yet. if you have insurance, there's a discount card that brings it down to $10 a month. (if you don't have insurance you're probably out of luck, because america is an evil country, and i'm sorry. maybe ask if your psychiatrist can get a regular supply of samples. if you can scrape together enough to pay the premium each month, it might be worth getting a marketplace plan and just using it for this.)

what it is, bizarrely, is dextromethorphan plus buproprion, and apparently the buproprion is NOT the key ingredient, it's just there to potentiate the dextromethorphan. which, yes, is cough syrup. i have no idea how it works but it does. also if you've tried buproprion (wellbutrin) before and it didn't work, don't worry, i did too. the cough syrup is where the magic is.

for me there have been zero side effects. i can read books again, i can watch a full episode of tv without needing a buddy to keep me focused, i don't get high every day and stare at youtube for hours. i'm not even passively suicidal anymore. i like sex again. i enjoy exercise now, because i actually get the endorphins my body was refusing to produce for years. if you are also in depression hell and you've been there forever and nothing has made any real difference: this might.

(and feel free to show your doctor this post if the prospect of starting the conversation is overwhelming! i have Been There.)

[cupophrogs]

🎶Splish-Splash he was takin’ a bath🎶

I think Sebastian seriously deserves some R&R.

Get this man in a hot tub.

Extras and scribbles!

[crystalrose043]

Yeah so i had an idea that bill would have to fix all the damage he did on Earth as a last trial to be freed from the Theraprism... and also i am bad at drawing cartoons and it always ends up looking like adventure time 😭 i think my dialogue/characterization is always so cringe and ooc so thats why i almost never upload fanart anymore 💀

[neuroticboyfriend]

do you have "treatment resistant depression" or are you just fundamentally living a life that would make anyone depressed?

are you just dealing with abuse, poverty, and oppression? are you just dealing with a lifetime of trauma? do we just live in a society where peoples basic needs are neglected, and the completely understanble response to that is pathologized? on purpose? so that it's just an individual problem and people arent Trying Enough... so nothing about the system has to change?

...do you have "treatment resistant depression," or do you just need real community, support, resources, and protection?

[baby-girl-aaron-dessner]

“Do you condemn Hamas?”

Hamas is a resistance movement, and the notion that they are an existential terrorist threat is propaganda to justify the genocide of Palestinians.

[fuck-your-proana-blog]

Fellow disabled people/in recovery people/suicidal people, please avoid interaction with @skylarthethompson .

I tried to kill myself last year because of my ED and chronic pain. I was in a coma for 2 days, in the hospital for 2 weeks, and am still suffering the after affects of the damage the 3 months worth of pills I swallowed did to my brain and body, and I'm still struggling with suicidal thoughts due to my many physical and mental illnesses. I just hope me exposing this cruel human will keep them from hurting anyone else who is also struggling.

Telling someone they have nothing to live for is so fucking beyond ok and I just want to warn anyone else who is suffering from chronic pain/illnesses/disabilities and mental illnesses/suicidal ideation that this person is a cruel and insensitive troll and to not let them rent space in your mind.

I reported them; anyone else who sees this please report this despicable behavior so they don't do any further damage to the mentally ill/chronically ill community here on Tumblr.

The first comment is clearly suicide baiting, and I guess they realized that and tried to seem a little less depraved; but you can't undo saying shit like this:

Also, take a look at the victim mentality at work here: "you're a smart smart nice person and I'm a dumb dumb mean person." 🙄.

And then there's the fake "do-gooder" story. So telling a very disabled person that their life isn't worth living is helping, and "a good coping mechanism"?? Anyone with half a braincell can tell you're just trying to seem less like an asshole when you've been exposed as one. Nice try to not seem like an absolute garbage person; but it didn't work.

And this selfishness: "I don't feel safe now! I don't want my virtual life ruined! I don't want gross people telling me horrible insults when my mental health can't take it!" Funny, because I didn't want your gross opinion on why I should just kill myself because my life is too miserable to be worth living with all my mental and physical illnesses. Nice ableism you got there. Also I didn't ask anyone to send you "horrible insults." I just asked my followers to avoid and report you for suicide baiting; which is a very severe problem on the internet that no one deserves; least of all mentally and physically disabled people like me and many of my followers.

"Please don't ruin my life over this!" If you say things online that you don't want everyone to see, that you can come to acknowledge are the actions of an asshole, that's your problem. Don't tell people they should just give up and kill themselves if you don't want people to see how heartless you are. If your life is "ruined" by something you said you have no one to blame but yourself.🤷

And of course the classic "I reported your post; I won't let you ruin my Tumblr life." ...are you even serious? You wrote those words; all I did was take screenshots and show them to my followers so they don't become victims of your harassment themselves- not everyone has the great support system I do, so they deserve a warning about people like you. Plus I said nothing wrong, I just told you that telling people to kill themselves is fucked up and made a post exposing your cruelty so you couldn't harm others who struggle like I do. If your "Tumblr life" gets "ruined" from this, your have no one to blame but yourself because all I did was post the words you put on my posts. I don't give a shit that you're "only 18;" you're still an adult and should know better than to tell strangers on the internet that their lives are so horrible they should just kill themselves.. also if you were actually "sorry" you wouldn't have said more cruel things after your oh-so-sincere apology.

There were even more responses they made saying they were going to kill themselves and it was my fault because I posted things they publicly said on a public platform, telling me they were going to Livestream their suicide and publicly blame me for their death, etc. (I reported those comments to Tumblr for a suicide threat but didn't get screenshots before they were deleted.) You can look at the amount of notes on said posts; this one has 27 replies with only 2 from me so they were harassing me all day with 25 comments while I went to some of my many appointments, so obviously I didn't get screenshots of them all, but the ones I did screenshot are more than enough proof that this person who told me I should just die and was trying to blame me for their mental state; saying I was guilty of something THEY actually did to ME, and that if they killed themselves it would be my fault... For simply making a post telling vulnerable people to be aware of them and their disgusting behavior because no one deserves to be told their life isn't worth living; especially when they've been fighting with those thoughts in their own mind for years and don't need some asshole online trying to push them over the edge towards suicide.

When I was a fucking child I knew that telling people to kill themselves is wrong. Not my problem that you're so cruel you can't see it that way and harassed me all day as I went to my disability appointments finding out if I need more surgery while my notifications were going off at a ridiculous rate as you were trying to convince me I'm the bad guy for warning vulnerable people about you; a person that told someone they don't even know who is a suicidal, ED recovering, physically and psychologically disabled person, that their life isn't worth living and they should just kill themselves.

This person is a threat to the mentally and physically disabled and they need their blog to be terminated so they can't trigger people on the edge like me and so many of my followers and others in the disabled/ED communities on Tumblr.

[ovaruling]

maybe a hot take but please don’t have or stop having children if you have an active eating disorder/body dysmorphia (including binge eating, not just restrictive disorders). seriously

thinking you’ll be the exception (because you’re So self-aware, unlike those Other disordered women) and won’t give your dysmorphia/eating disorder to your child is pride before a very slow and terrible fall

it never ever works. you’re never ever immune. i mean, such a huge reason of why there are so many of us now is bc our moms thought the same thing lmfao. didn’t matter how well-intentioned they were. no matter how much they tried to separate Their Problems from Ours. here we fucking are

i know it’s not women’s fault to begin with, but the reality is that those of us affected do incubate, nurture, and pass on the virus in the Current Way of Things

the buck needs to stop here. this isn’t a game. think of all the things your mother probably thought she was expertly hiding from you that you still picked up on and were profoundly affected by in a terrible and formative way. it will happen to you, too. don’t think it won’t.

if you know that you’re not solidly and confidently recovered, you have a responsibility to stop that buck and not actively attempt to create a child who will observe, mimic, internalize, adopt, and inherit your lifelong life-ruining behavior. the selfishness is breathtaking honestly

[twistedappletree]

Big headcanon that Lan Xichen adored baby A-Yuan when Lan Wangji brought him to the Cloud Recesses.

Big headcanon that he adored him so much, LWJ actually had to stop his brother from spoiling him because he wanted A-Yuan to be equal and have the same experience as the other Lan juniors so there wasn’t any favoritism/jealousy or bullying against him.

Big headcanon that Lan Xichen found more practical ways to spoil him because he saw how smart and fast-learning little A-Yuan was and always made sure he had the tools and resources to excel in his studies and cultivation.

[system-of-a-feather]

FYI when it comes to trauma processing, sometimes one of the healthiest and productive decisions you can make is to ACTIVELY choose to avoid and not address an issue right now even if you "should"

Its easy to get caught in the "talk about it, use therapy productively, if you aren't doing anything, you aren't Doing Anything" and, while compulsive habitual avoidance typically causes temporary stagnation, ACTIVE acknowledgement that you are CHOOSING to ignore it and avoid it because you are CHOOSING to give yourself space and time is such a fundamental skill to emotional awareness, self regulation, self compassion, and rebuilding trust within yourself to maintain your own boundaries even when you feel that you "should" ignore them

Actively choosing to not address a topic at the moment is good practice at saying "I am not ready and I need more time and for that reason I am going to actively refuse to engage in this topic at the current moment" which helps so immensely at being more mindful of your own needs and emotional states which can be hard as someone with C-PTSD

Sometimes the best and most healing thing you can do for yourself is Nothing.

[ofmdee]

🍒

[wheelie-sick]

someone brought up in the tags of another post that people think bipolar is easily treatable but it's not

and considering I am on

high dose abilify

lamotrigine

lithium

all simultaneously and I am still getting serious mood episodes I'd say they're right

[briarmae]

So, I have autism. One aspect of autism and/ or adhd is RSD, or Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria. It's used to describe a type of emotional disregulation.

I accidentally made a relatively popular post (for me). (It currently has 2,900 notes. My next most popular post has 100.) 2,900 notes, and of them, only about 12 people who responded were negative and/ or confused. I was CONSUMED with feelings of anger, anxiety, rejection, and sadness about those 12 people. 12 out of 2900.

RSD is ridiculous.

But my psychiatrist added a new antidepressant, and suddenly those feelings are blunted, and I can let go of things that cause me anxiety. But I can still experience joy, etc. It's like... my emotions are less overwhelming, but I can still feel them? I hope I'm describing it well enough.

Is this how *normal people feel?

(*Normal, of course, is relative. In this case, it refers to people who are neurotypical and/ or do not suffer from mental illness.)

[victorluvsalice]

Happy Birthday WeirdKev!

@weirdkev27 Here is your requested fic, the VTMB versions of Philliane Tropy and Zan Owlson being interviewed by a film crew a la What We Do In The Shadows! It's not EXACTLY like the TV show, I admit, but I think it has the right vibes, anyway. Hope you enjoy!

--

[cut to: PHILLIANE TROPY, a well-put-together Ventrue with pale blond hair, sporting a pink suit and a bright smile that looks entirely genuine – at least for the moment. She is seated behind a large desk of the exact type you imagine any CEO having, hands folded on the desktop]

TROPY: Oh yes, I know what a lot of the other Kindred say about me, and it’s simply not true. It’s not that I don’t respect any of them – it’s that I only respect the ones that I feel deserve to be respected! It’s not my fault that the ones who most insist on respect are the ones least deserving of it.

[she adjusts her position in her chair, leaning back slightly with a more thoughtful look]

TROPY: Take, for example, a Prince of my recent acquaintance, one Sebastian LaCroix. Fellow Ventrue, installed by the Camarilla in downtown Los Angeles after they swept in to help the Anarchs repel an invasion by the Wan Kuei.

CAMERAMAN: [sound of ruffling paper] Sorry, hang on – we thought they were fighting the Kuei-jin?

TROPY: I’ve heard both terms, and after making some inquiries, I’ve learned they prefer Wan Kuei. So that’s the term I’m going to use. [shrugs] Might as well not make relations any worse, right? Anyway, I understood that becoming Prince of Los Angeles – the heart of the Anarch Free States – is an inherently stressful position. You are under a lot of pressure to make a good impression and do your job well! All without pissing off the locals. But Prince LaCroix...

[she sighs heavily and rolls her eyes]

TROPY: Well. His handling of his new domain left something to be desired. Zan knows all about it, don’t you Zan?

[cut to: ZAN OWLSON, Trophy’s top ghoul and known lover, a dark-skinned woman with a curly Afro, large eyes, and an intelligent demeanor, sitting on a nearby couch. She nods in a very world-weary way]

OWLSON: She called me so many nights to bitch about him – I can say “bitch,” right?

CAMERAMAN: Yeah, if we need to, we’ll just bleep it in post.

TROPY: [laughs as the camera goes back to her] Oh, it was definitely bitching, I admit it! Poor Zan, I kept her up at night, and not for the fun reason...but really, the things he pulled were outrageous!

[she leans forward in her chair, the humor in her face gone]

TROPY: Like, listen to this – he had an illegal Embrace in his domain, and not only did he initially try to kill the fledgling along with her sire – never mind it wasn’t her fault she was turned without permission – he then turned the poor girl into his woman-of-all-work without giving her the slightest bit of education on what being a Kindred meant! He had her running around all over the damn city, doing things like blowing up Sabbat warehouses and investigating plague cults – things that no fledgling should be doing on their own! And he wasn’t even paying her a fair wage for her work! Every ghoul on my payroll earns more than she did, with benefits beside – and they’re almost all office workers! I had to step in and give the girl the money she’d rightfully earned! Let me tell you, LaCroix didn’t like that!

CAMERAMN: [sounding confused] Yeah, bet he didn’t, but – hang on, back to the thing about your ghouls. Don’t you usually pay ghouls in blood? That’s what all the other Kindred we’ve interviewed have said.

TROPY: And they wonder why I don’t respect them! [smacking a hand on the desktop] Blood doesn’t pay the bills! Blood doesn’t keep a roof over a ghoul’s head! The monthly drink from your domitor is a health benefit at most!

OWLSON: [off-camera] Philli has strong opinions about this.

TROPY: [sour-faced] It just agets under my skin that most Kindred consider making sure their ghoul stays a ghoul is sufficient payment for the work they do. No, making sure your ghoul stays a ghoul just ensures that they can keep doing the work. They deserve proper pay and benefits beyond the retention of their ghoul status.

CAMERAMAN: [with a soft chuckle] You almost sound like you want there to be some sort of “ghoul union.”

[TROPY stares directly into the camera for a moment – then her face splits into a wide smile]

TROPY: That – is a brilliant idea. Zan, do you think we could start one up?

OWLSON: [off-camera] I mean, I’m willing to try – but there’s going to be a lot of pushback from the other Kindred with ghouls around.

TROPY: [grins, showing off her fangs – and looking truly dangerous for the first time during her segment] Fantastic. I’ve been looking for an opportunity to throw my weight around.

[sailormoonsailorstars]

Any advice for treatment resistant depression from fellow people with PTSD, MDD, and DID? It’s also important to note that I have tachycardia (and it’s suspected to be POTS) as well as H-EDS

I’ve been on a plethora of medications since I was 13 (so ~7 years of trials and hospitalizations)

Some of those meds have included Lithium, Seroquel, Abilify, Wellbutrin, Buspar, Trintellix etc

Basically any of the first options doctors jump to I’ve tried already

I don’t want to do any electric or metal therapy because my sister did it and has severe memory problems because of it - I also can’t do weed related treatments because of my age and I don’t want to as they trigger psychosis and paranoia for me

I know there’s stigma about Ketamine treatments but I was wondering if any of you have tried and if it’s been successful

In terms of therapy I’m doing good with that I just need medication that helps and doesn’t have terrible side effects. Lamictal has been somewhat successful but I am not hungry at all and struggle to eat on it which is terrible because I also have ARFID

Any advice helps, thank you

[zombiepedia]

being bipolar is like: you either take medication to be a digestible zombie for the people around you. you more likely than not spend a good amount of money that you don't have on meds. or you live unmedicated, and people are constantly hyper vigilant of your symptoms, worried, or nervous to be around you. now try all of this while being treatment resistant. and then try it after experiencing psychiatric abuse. and then try not to kill yourself or get sick when you look at a date for a psychiatry/therapy appointment