need advice please

[squiggle]

i feel more comfortable posting this here than in substance abuse.

Ijhave eight months clean from heroin.

but i am still suffering from the same problems as before. paranoia, problems sleeping, lood mood and times of extreme happiness., but mostly anxiety almost constantly.

Personally i think i have bi polar.

i have had a pyschiatrict assesment over a year ago when i was still using drugs .

I have spopken to my doctor a few times about how messed up i feel, but he said he didnt think i had any mental health problems and that the problems i am having is just readjusting to life drug free.

i dont agree how do i get the help/diagnosis i need.

i did start anti depreesents really briefly, for two days , that was a few months ago.

i dont thi k how i feel is normal .

any thoughts would be appreiciated.

[ClayTheScribe]

Originally Posted by squiggle

i feel more comfortable posting this here than in substance abuse.

Ijhave eight months clean from heroin.

but i am still suffering from the same problems as before. paranoia, problems sleeping, lood mood and times of extreme happiness., but mostly anxiety almost constantly.

Personally i think i have bi polar.

i have had a pyschiatrict assesment over a year ago when i was still using drugs .

I have spopken to my doctor a few times about how messed up i feel, but he said he didnt think i had any mental health problems and that the problems i am having is just readjusting to life drug free.

i dont agree how do i get the help/diagnosis i need.

i did start anti depreesents really briefly, for two days , that was a few months ago.

i dont thi k how i feel is normal .

any thoughts would be appreiciated.

You should post this as well in the substance abuse forum because your mood changes may just be from the withdrawal effects and coming back to normal. So check with some people there who have dealt with heroin withdrawal.

If your symptoms persist, find a psychiatrist and a therapist. GPs really don't know much about mental health or the pharmacology to treat it. A psychiatrist can diagnose you more effectively and give you the proper medications--they may put you on a mood stabilizer. A therapist can also diagnose you and give you tools for how to deal with your disorder and how to cope. I wouldn't rely on my GP to diagnose my mental health or give me medicine for it.

If your symptoms are indeed not an effect of the heroin withdrawal, you might indeed have bi-polar disorder. But don't look for a diagnosis on here. None of us could not make such a diagnosis. Go find yourself a psychiatrist and therapist.

Have you ever experienced bi-polar symptoms before and how old are you?

[eoghanacht]

Sorry I can't be of much help squiggle, I didn't do drugs except for speed.
Maybe get a second opinion from a different doctor. Or even call a national helpline?


me

[squiggle]

Hi thanks , for advice clay the scribe and eoghanacht.

I already see a therapist for an hour a week , i have been seeing her for about three years.
With being clean and in therapy i really thought i would be finding life easier , but as i said it the same old problems and feeling s as when i was using heroin.
It just doesn't add up.

I was seen by psychiatrist whilst i was still using heroin so in my eyes his diagnosis is not relevant for me know.

I have a family history on my mothers side of mental illness, schizophrenia, and many female members have had mental break downs/ anxiety /depression.
So the genetic disposition is there.

I first started having problems after my parents split up and i started high school , i became very withdraw, anxious and had sleep problems, i then started experimenting with drugs. so i was around early teens, from then on its been the samr with a few extreme times brought on by drug use and extreme stress.

I have noticed a definite connection between, feeeling extremly stressed and how i feel my mood and behaviour is affected.

I am 25 years old now so i have been struggling like this for a long time with periods of drug free time along the way.
This is the most time i have drug free , 8mths coming up 9 months soon!

I think i need to get referred to a new pychiatrist , by a doctor.Although we have free NHS medical here , i am currently seeing a private doctor as he has helped me kick heroin, and i feel i know him well.Although he disagrees with thinking i have mental health problems!But he doesn't see what i am like the rest of the time!And also i am not great at fully explaining things.

I do definately get very depressed for periods at a time, but i am just battling on with it because eventually it lifts,

One of the reasons i hav not been taking meds , is i am breastfeeding and i didn't want to risk any rubbish passing from me to baby regardless of what health guidelines are.

Bit paranoid but i don'y think it was worth it.
As my son i nearly 7 mths and on solids , i would consider giving meds a try again as long as i got a diagnosis too.

I have been on anti depreesents over the years and for the most part they helped, things were more managable generally whilst i was on them. Citalapram is mostly what i was put on.And beta blockers too. for my anxiety and depression. Sometimes that didn't help though.

I might add i have a history of self harm and a few suicide attempts , from a few years ago. Eating and my body image is an ongoing battle, at the moment a crutch and to be honest a constant battle,cause i know how stupid it is really.

anyway long post...

[ClayTheScribe]

Well you know what you need to do now. You need to find a GP, NHS or private, and have them refer you to a psychiatrist. The longer you wait, the worse things will get. Make sure you tell them every symptom, every last detail. If you have a genetic disposition to mental illness, have a history of self-harm, suicide attempts and body issues and your doctor is telling you you don't have mental health problems? It's time to see a new doctor right away because regardless of how they can help you with staying off heroin, he's disregarding a patient's cry for help and that is immoral. If you're against finding another doctor, tell your current doctor that you won't be seeing him anymore unless he can refer you to a shrink. Talk therapy can only get you so far. Being depressed and unmedicated is also not very healthy for your infant as he/she needs a mother who's mentally stable and functioning.

You mentioned you're not good at explaining things. Write it down. Write down every symptom you feel is your mental illness, how it affects you, how long, your history with it and then make your doctor read it. If he still denies you a psych referral, drop him or find another doc who can help you.

As far as I know psych meds shouldn't affect your breastfeeding, but a psychiatrist will be able to tell you for sure. The sooner you're on meds, the better you'll feel. Don't wait on this.

Take care

[atomica]

I'm 100% with Clay, his advice is spot-on IMHO. It sounds like you have good grounds to suspect something other than heroin withdrawal might be going on, and there's a lot of red flags to my mind (family history, personal history).

So as he suggested, write it down. Document it as clearly and as comprehensively as you can - all your family history, significant incidents from your past esp before your heroin use. Also keep a day-to-day journal of what's going on with you now. Try to include behaviours and not just feelings - stuff like sleeping probs, anxiety attacks (if you have panic-type attacks) and so on.

Even if you did not want meds, i think knowing exactly what is going on is really powerful and therapeutic. There's nothing worse than when you feel in distress, but the people who are supposed to help you make you feel like you're mistaken or imagining it. If you're in distress - you're not imagining it! And it can be very relieving to know what "it" is, and thus have strategies for managing it.

I wish you the best of luck on your quest

ae

[squiggle]

So glad someone agrees with me, was pleased when i read your replies, thanks claythescribe and atomica.

I am so fed up with people telling me this due to sleep deprivation and adjusting to life frug free , this has been going on much longer, it has just changed over the years.

I agree clay/atomica think i need a new doctor(and therapist). I hold my current doc in high regard because of what he has supportred me through, but ultimately if i feel he isn't taking how i am finding things seriously ,then a change has to be made.

Also i am going to find a new therapist, because i feel i need more challenging therapy, i know i have some bad habits with how i behave /act/react.She also knows i am struggling with my body image too, i feel as though its not a big deal to her. I think play down how bad things are , when i get patted on the head and told its just me re adjusting to life drug free, when i am explaining how hard things are, wanting an explation for why i feel so messed up and barely coping.

Therapy is ment to help and mine is not at the moment.

I still manage to look after my boy, its an absolute struggle sometimes.
I told the health visitor /nurse and my doctor how i was coping and they instantly mentioned meds/anti depressents after i got bloods taken to see if i was anemic. They just don't get the severity of what i am trying to explain to them.

And a fear i have is if i am referred to pysch' i dont want social services on my back, about my son , thinking i may be an unfit mother.

I had social work involved whilst i was pregnant, and thankfully never again , but the stigma of being an ex heroin user still follows me around even though i am totally clean.

It really frustrates me as i am just judged and not trusted, there is a lot of worry i feel with the nurse/doctor that i could possible start using again, when i told them i was really struggling.

The health visitor almost laughed and replied'what do you expect when your a single mum in a new area.
'
Totally over looking what i was trying to explain, just lumping me with it being post natal depression or some other thing that she has knowledge of.

Sorry almost ranting, i know what i have to do, i will get on to it.

Thanks for your concern and advice , i will let you know how it goes.

[unholy_mess]

Just out of curiosity...beta blockers for anxiety?
I know they're given for it, but I've never actually known of anyone who took beta blockers for anxiety. I always had the understanding that they were for more acute treatment of anxiety symptoms related to the para/sympathetic nervous systems. But did you use them long-term?

Anyway. Outside of that. I can relate to a lot of what you're saying...a lot of my problems started when my parents split up. I was 9 so it took 3-4 years to turn into drinking and drugs, but oh it got there!
I think what needs to be said has been said here...you've gotten some really good responses--better than I could have given you. So, I wish you luck with this! I think it's great that you're stepping up and saying--hey, something's wrong, listen to me!
That's very important.
Sometimes when talking to my therapist, I tend to sort of brush by things that are really huge, huge issues. Like I'll just briefly mention my drinking/drug problems or my cutting, but then I kind of usually put some kind of sarcastic comment on the end so we end up kind of laughing. And I, myself, avoid approaching the seriousness of it (bear with me here, I don't think this is what you are doing that they don't see how serious it is, I'll get to my point, I promise! ) But once, I was in a particularly serious mood and I sat down and said "ok, look, I know I keep sort of brushing past this and make it less than it is so you've gotten the impression perhaps that it's not actually as serious as it really may be--but it's very serious and I want to talk about it very seriously right now"
and her response was basically along the lines of yes, I know, it's very serious and I'm glad you want to talk about it and talk seriously and talk about how serious it really is. So, the point of all of that is: if you haven't yet tried doing so (which I bet you have but I'm just throwing this out there anyway!), say to your doctor "hey look, I think this is more than just new motherhood, more than average stress, more than being off drugs...and I need your support and help finding someone who specializes in mental health so I can figure this all out and feel healthy and if you can't help me, I need to explore finding someone who can" and say something similar to the therapist "I really want you to try to understand how important and serious this is to me and I'd like to talk about it."

[Zencat]

I'm all for getting a second or third doctors opinion when I dealing with a serious health issue. This would include my mental health. Once I cleaned up for a good wile I still had depression and anxiety symptoms. That's when my therapist suggested I seek out medication to help me in my duel-diagnosis treatment. I hope things get better for you.