Mental Health Update

I thought today I would type up an update about my mental health and how I have been getting on since coming off antidepressants and attending my new appointments.

It’s been about 3 months since I first started weaning off my antidepressants and at first it was really difficult, the brain zaps were horrible. I was suffering from antidepressant withdrawal syndrome (an actual thing). It was really tough but after a month or so it became easier. I was supposed to take mirtazapine just after I started coming off Duloxetine but it was the worst tablet I’ve ever taken, I was a complete zombie. I’d say I’m now 2 months without antidepressants and I feel a lot better in myself in some ways but overall I don’t really notice much change, I believe this is because antidepressants aren’t designed to treat BPD so it just didn’t help me.

I’ve been attending my recovery team appointments for my new mental health team, they’re secondary care. I’ve only had two appointments so far but at first I wasn’t too sure how I felt about it, I just felt like I was back to square one again not sure how to recover. My second appointment we spoke about making a crisis plan, something I’ve done before but this time a lot more in depth one. We also spoke about my sleep pattern, she’s hopefully going to get one of the doctors to try me on some sleep tablets as required to help me get some decent sleep. Recently I’ve been going without sleep a lot, the worst being 30 hours awake. I’m hoping they’ll help me when I’m really struggling but hopefully not make me too drowsy when I wake up.

I’m stressed out quite a bit at the moment because I still haven’t got a start date for my job. I’m really struggling money wise as well, Job seekers doesn’t really cut all my bills and it sucks. I can’t wait to start working again, my mental health team are getting me vocational help to make sure this time I get the correct support to stay in work despite my mental health.

Some of you may already know as well that I’ve set up a YouTube account. The reason behind this is to build my confidence back up, I had it knocked a lot during school and college and never really built it back up since. This is kind of my chance to try and change that back! Here’s the link if you want to check it out and support me!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRv8z3ypZ2JNvF4aDD__z8g

I think this just about covers my update really. I’m looking forward to more appointments with my recovery team, it seems I will be staying of medication. Although I am beginning to hallucinate so I am a little worried. Hopefully the next time I post I’ll have started work or at least got a start date!

Hannah x