Depression Understood Forums

All,

Thank you for having me here. I am seeking understanding.

My son is 20 and has dealt with depression for years. I have been depressed. But it was always due to an obvious loss, or situation.

I have always struggled with understanding his type of chronic depression.

So for me the obvious choice when dealing with something I know nothing about, and this serious, is to contact professionals.

He has been through all assortments of drugs. Last year he was put on Effexir. He was given a particularly high dose as I understand it. 1000mg? Sound right? Now the last year there has been some particularly bad behavior. I struggle with where the drugs are the problem vs. his own immaturity. He would say everything is due to the drugs. I want to believe that but I don't want to be naive. I want to help, but I don't want to enable.

He has made a difficult choice to get off the effexir. Which give me hope that it is the drugs that have made him act this way.

He has gone down to 375mg last week. He saw another doctor who diagnosed him with PTSD. He was given some mood relaxers. He seemed hopeful at first.

But now he has come to me to tell me he isn't doing well. For awhile now he has had vivid, intense, nightmares. He said that the only time he had some peace from them was when he was at 1000mg.

But as he put it, he is running out of options.

We are trying to look into other doctors, as he does not have much faith in the ones he has now.

I just have NO idea what to do.

Meant to add, thanks for reading and I appreciate anybodies thoughts.

I have been depressed for several years, have been through many different meds. and talk therapy. Speaking for myself, it can take many trys with different meds to find one that works for you, and each time I changed I had to wait from 3 weeks to 2months to see if the new med was better than the last. It can seem Never Ending. But there is help. I hope you can find a new Doctor that he can trust and can relate well to your son. Don't forget to take care of yourself too tho... anyway I'll be sending good thoughts your way.

Young men of that age are a challenge. Mine is/was. (we hope it stays at "was").

Like you, I would be very concerned with his use of the phrase, "running out of options." I would suggest having a discussion about *exactly* what he means by that. You might have to drag it out of him.

My experience: in a fit of rage, my son started to threaten himself, with a knife. Immediately called 911. Situation had extenuating circumstance, but we did what we felt we must. His actions gave us no choice. Hospitalization remained on the table for the next year or so as the last option. And knowing that tended to separate the teen "drama queen/king" from his true feelings. He is on meds and doing very well right now.

We had MANY "come to Jesus" talks about what the hell was going on inside his head and his feelings. We got him to many doc appointments under protest, but we got him there. He hated that. But after the 911 call and all that ensued, we, and HE, had no choice.

No doubt your situation is unique and very different than mine. If I had one point to make, it'd be this - you may be faced with making a decision regarding your son that will hurt so much that you'll hate yourself. But if he is at a point of threatening himself, then those choices must be made.

It's all a process. Goals will seem far away. But the process needs to start. And he needs to work. He may hate the work, but he will see that he needs to do it (with the docs and you).

So sorry - I kind of babbled on there... I hope some kernel of info may have come out of the babble.

Hoping for you

n.