Mental disorders and overcoming them

[Erierith]

To those who have mental disorders, what caused your disorder and what have you done to attempt to (or successfully) overcome them?

[SchizoSpazz]

I don't know if one can entirely overcome them and be all better, but...........

I don't know if anything caused it. It's been there since I can remember, so either something happened in infancy or toddlerhood that brought it on, or I was born with it.

But to help with some of it, mostly medication and therapy.

[Erierith]

SchizoSpazz

I don't know if one can entirely overcome them and be all better, but...........

I don't know if anything caused it. It's been there since I can remember, so either something happened in infancy or toddlerhood that brought it on, or I was born with it.

But to help with some of it, mostly medication and therapy.

What do you have, exactly? I don't want to go off by your username alone.
As for the medication and therapy, how exactly did that work out for you?

[SchizoSpazz]

Erierith

SchizoSpazz

I don't know if one can entirely overcome them and be all better, but...........

I don't know if anything caused it. It's been there since I can remember, so either something happened in infancy or toddlerhood that brought it on, or I was born with it.

But to help with some of it, mostly medication and therapy.

What do you have, exactly? I don't want to go off by your username alone.
As for the medication and therapy, how exactly did that work out for you?

I have schizotypal, anxiety, depression, and dissociative depersonalization.

Medication, I don't know if that is really working, but therapy is now working very well for me.

[Flavored Pantss]

I have ADD and PTSD. Traumatic experiences caused the PTSD. I don't believe anything "causes" ADD. I used to be on medication for the ADD. I stopped taking it when I was around 14 because it was stupid. I'm trying to go back to therapy because I can't get a grasp on controlling the complications of my PTSD. Recent events have really caused my mind to work against me.

[British Tourettes]

I have PTSD and depression. PTSD is from a series of abuse over the larger part of my life. I don't know how I got depression. I've had it ever since I was a young child so I don't know.

[Stale Taste]

Genetics & environment.
Medication & working on my personality problems.

[madderFox]

My disorders were caused by genetic reasons mostly, and abuse. I'm on three different medications and go for evaluations at the county MHMR quarterly.

[esoteric conception]

Genetics and environment (conditioning from a young age), is my best analysis with help from my therapist. I have been diagnosed in the past with dysthymic disorder, but within the last couple years, the depresed state and related anxiety has only surfaced during winter. Behavioral therapy and changes to my life to make it more structured, supportive, intimate and friendly has helped tremendously. I still have issues, but work through them at every opportunity by journaling, talking to people who care, altering my thought patterns so as not to feed into a negative cycle when I am upset, and continuing to analyze what makes me upset, making changes so that the outcome is different in the future.

[flauterfli]

OP is a bit ******** nosy. "I need to know the specific mg of your meds please"

Antenatal depression and suicidal ideation. I don't know the cause, besides being pregnant (obviously).
Doctors initially thought it was a chemical reaction caused by the benign brain tumor (a cyst) but after an MRI the cyst seems to have resolved itself (it's no longer visible). I'm in counseling (and a home nurse checks in periodically, especially if I'm alone) but not on medication due to the pregnancy. I am very high risk for postpartum depression. Baby's movement is the only thing that kept me from killing myself the past nine months.

[Rose_Eirheart]

The main thing I deal with is my obsessive compulsive disorder. Thats on a daily basis. It gets intensely worst with my depression. Then the other things rear there ugly heads. For the first time in 6 years I am back on meds. Not something that Im honestly not ok with needing them. but the help is truly needed.

[Btch_lasagna_18]

Genetics are the most likely cause of my bipolar. I've been treating it with a combination of prescribed pharmaceuticals and the traditional Tibetan Buddhist path (meditation, chants, so on).

[Vardoger]

I've had chronic depression my entire life. I got it from being born into a family that has a history mental illness.

There is no 'getting over it'. I've fooled myself sooo many times. I thought there was a 'cure' a 'solution'. There isn't. It's never going to go away completely. It might go into a sort of 'remission' but it always comes back.

The point is managing how to live with it, how to read the signs and symptoms and how to manage your life in order to not kill yourself. Or think of killing yourself.

Anyway, I do that via lots of therapy. I see a therapist once every 2 weeks. During bad times, once every week.

[Tums Festival]

Manic depression and anxiety for me. I did go to a therapist a couple years ago. However, I couldn't afford the meds after a month or so due to my husband's work hours being ******** around with.

I'm pretty sure my stuff is genetic as my mom has the same diagnosis as me. Also, I'm pretty sure I have other family members - intermediate and extended - that have the same diagnosis.

For now, pot helps a lot with my depression and anxiety until I get on some sort of health insurance to go back to see a therapist.

[Jason0690]

Chronic, long-term, debilitating depression that gets worse between when the leaves start falling, & until they bloom again.(So Major depressive disorder with Seasonal Affective Disorder on top.)
Aside from being from a family of crazies(Bipolar depression, unipolar depression, and schizophrenia.), I have no real idea why I have MDD & SAD, I don't think anything extremely traumatic happened to me as a child.

And I don't think there is any "overcoming" it. There are days when with medication that I can feel happy, that I can feel like going out and doing things. But the vast majority of the time I feel slightly crappy and don't even want to open the curtains.(Without meds I'll only get up to piss on my worst days.) Major depression isn't like situational depression - such as losing your job or whatnot. It's not something that can be fixed as easily as getting a new job.(Though even that's not that easy.)

I'm on medication, prozac, to be specific. In winter I'm on 60mg, in summer months, sometimes, I can go down to 40mg(used to be able to go off entirely.). Though I'm starting to think that I need to switch off from prozac.

While I have been in therapy, I don't think it does s**t. More often than not I don't have enough things to talk about in terms of my mental issues for 30 min to an hour. For people whose depression comes from trauma, it probably does help.
I think my brain is just all levels of ******** up, and that therapy won't help. Might help me learn how to cope with extra depressing crap, but I didn't learn any new coping skills when I went. Doubt I'll learn anything new if I went again.

I also have a bit of social anxiety. I can deal with people, in groups of less than 5.
Anything more than 30 people makes me feel panicky if I don't know a couple people really well.

My husband has a host of issues, but some are hard to tell where his developmental disorder ends and begins. He has high functioning autism, which usually includes obsessive-compulsory actions. His mostly manifests in the use of hand sanitizer and hand washing, germ eradication, basically.(In lesser instances, object placement, he has to have his keyboard, monitor, and mouse at work just so. And anytime it gets moved he becomes extremely agitated.)
He also has severe Major depressive disorder - he hasn't been off of his medication(Save changes.) in 15 years. Right now he's on a high dose of prozac - 80mg. The maximum daily recommended dose for non controlled-release prozac.(controlled release MDRD is I think 90mg.) This keeps him functional - doesn't keep him from being depressed.
Unlike me, he is in therapy, because his depression is a result of trauma, and he had C-PTSD to go with it. He's helped by therapy, unlike myself.