Hello,
I'm 24 y/o, M. I've had periods of depression/exhaustion for as long as I can remember. In the past six months, however, my depression has become much more intense and frequent. The worst days are those where I can't even bring myself to get out of bed. I feel extremely tired, my mind is blurry, I can't concentrate and doing even the most basic tasks (taking a shower, making dinner) is a painful process. Fortunately, I have not missed any days of work because of my depression, although I have been late on a few occasions. Though I don't miss work, I often go through entire days at work feeling sad and very tired.
I can't pin-point any situational reasons for why my depression worsened. My life seemed to be on a good track. I have been seeing a psychiatrist for several months now and have been diagnosed with major depressive disorder. Unfortunately I find I often have a lack of things to talk about in our therapy sessions. I've thought about major issues in my life (like issues in my childhood, dealing with family members, or deciding what my life goals are) so much over the last 10 years, that I feel like I'm fairly comfortable about dealing with these issues. That is, I don't feel the need to constantly go over them with my doctor. And that makes me unsure of what I'm trying to accomplish in therapy to begin with.
I've also started several medications and am very confused as to which ones will be beneficial in the long term. The first one I started on was lunesta, a sleeping pill for my insomnia. That worked fairly well. I could actually go to sleep when I wanted to for maybe the first time in my life. Recently, however, my doctor has told me that it might be making me MORE tired during the day. So, as per his advise, I've been trying to take it less often. Of course, my insomnia has come back. Since I've just started doing this, I'm unsure of whether decreasing my lunesta usage is increasing my energy or not.
I'm also taking two anti-depressants. The first is wellbutrin xl. The first week I started taking this I felt GREAT. I felt as if it had cured my depression. After a week I got sick, just a cold, and I felt TERRIBLE. When my cold went away, I never got back to feeling great again. When we increased my dosage, I had a similar experience. I felt very good for a few days, but then the effect seemed to wear off. In addition, while taking the higher dosage, I would wake up after only 6 hours of sleep each night, which is not enough for me. So I've gone back to the lower dosage.
I started zoloft, but it worsened how tired I felt, so I stopped it.
After discontinuing the zoloft, my doctor prescribed cymbalta. I've been taking it for a week now. I've been taking it for 6 days now. My mood is so erratic that it's hard to tell if it's making me feel more blurry or not. However, I did notice that it gave me a bit of an energy boost for the first few days. It has also consistently made it harder for me to sleep. From what I've read, the average time it takes for zoloft to kick in is about two weeks (that is, the time it takes for the beneficial effects to set in). I'm not sure at this point whether the effects of the cymbalta I'm feeling now (the slight energy boost and the difficulty sleeping) have an overall beneficial or detrimental effect on me. I've also read that side effects of insomnia may go away within the first few weeks. So I've decided (with my doctor) to keep on taking
