Hi everyone,
I just need to talk. I honestly don't think I can put it all into words, I've had such a complex time recently - including seven medication adjustments (I've talked about being on sertraline and having my dose messed about with a lot, however, after looking more deeply into my mood issues it was suggested that I'd benefit from a mood stabiliser, so I tried lithium, and practically turned into a zombie overnight so I came off it after two weeks, and then the sertraline stopped being helpful for some unknown reason and I'm now on a completely different antidepressant called clomipramine, which isn't working much at all except for making me sleep but is making me drowsy yet hyper which is very strange) so my brain has been well and truly bleeped with chemically, with not many of these adjustments having been particularly helpful, but I feel in a bit of a corner, as in I don't think I could cope with coming off medication - when I had to taper off sertraline to go onto the clomipramine, I was climbing the walls (not literally, but it was a horrendous couple of weeks with no medication in my system; not just from a side effect point of view but I was depressed and of course, coming off an antidepressant worsened my mood and I often worried about how on earth I could possibly make it through). And more names have been bandied about than ever before and I'm so confused, sometimes it feels as if I don't exist at all.
There's so much more to it than this, and I couldn't possibly write it all down. When I write it down it looks like lies anyway. They won't admit it, but the people around me believe I'm lying about all this to manipulate them or to tell myself what I want to hear. They're only willing to believe in feelings that a) appear "normal" or b) are characteristic of my Asperger's diagnosis. For example, my mum feels that I only want to believe in my medication working on my so-called "mental health difficulties" because there is no solution for autism (which she thinks I'm in denial about). I have totally separate views on this, however, what's more relevant to what I was intending to write here is that I often feel as though I don't fit into either the MH world or the ASC world. I'm sure I've posted things like this on here before but recently, it's just got harder and harder. Mental health professionals tell me that so much of me is not typical of someone on the spectrum, and that far fewer of my difficulties are caused by autism than my family and I have been led to believe, and those I've known who pushed for my Asperger's diagnosis say that there's absolutely nothing wrong with my mental health and when I get older and learn to accept my diagnosis, I will happily lead a less conventional life than the average NT and everything will be OK. I don't know what to believe and I feel lost.
Can anyone relate? I would so appreciate it if anyone could share a similar experience on this thread if they were comfortable, or if they could possibly give me some advice. I'm struggling quite a bit at the moment.
Thank you,
LivAgain