BPD and antidepressants

Hello everyone,

This is my first post here. I'm a 32 year old single female with no children, just a dog and living with my mom. I'm writing because I'm desperate. After 10 years of being diagnosed with recurrent major depression, with the exception of added bpd traits once, I was finally diagnosed with BPD last June. I started going to a psychologist specialized on DBT and I'm going to both individual and group therapy. The thing is that I've been taking 150 mg of Zoloft and 100 mg of Lamictal but I ran out of both about three weeks ago and didn't have a refill or appointment with my psychiatrist. I thought: "What the heck! I've been feeling a lot better and stable and I know medication is not that essential in treating PD's so I'm just going to see how this works out since a lot of the others that go to therapy don't take anything". Well, I feel like crap. I haven't felt this miserable in such a long time. I got out of work on Friday and have spent all weekend in bed. I don't know if it's because of the meds or if it's all in my mind. I'm also freaked out because I thought that I wasn't going to have to take medication forever since my dx is a personality disorder and not a mood one.

Any thoughts on this? Do you guys take medication? What do you think I should do? Thanks for reading and I hope you're all feeling well. [/b]

I've been on a ton of medications, and they effected my behavior in some positive ways, which led to me being more able to make changes in my thinking and choices that led to improving even after I stopped medication. Actually, most of the improvements happened after I stopped medication, but I think they were needed to get the ball rolling. I wasn't in a state of mind to be helped before that.

Clearly I'm not all better. I have had ups, and I've had downs... currently I've been backsliding to the point where I think I need medication again. But, I've been 8 years without it, and have been mostly good up until recently.

Everyone is going to have a different experience, but just know it's possible to improve without medication. I needed a lot of changes in my life, and medication helped me make some of those changes. But after those changes were made, I could rely on myself to continue without medication.

Y, medication is not the be all and end all of solutions. For many folks it's what allows you just enough stability to enter into therapy solutions until you're eventually able to slowly wean yourself from the pharmaceutical crutch. At the same time, quitting cold turkey, whether by choice or by circumstances can be devastating and it's never recommended. What you're feeling now is the shock of withdrawal. For now you need to get back on your regular dosage. Stabilize while continuing your therapy, and then you can reduce your meds by choice…but give it a while, and only when you feel you're ready. Just because the meds make you feel okay and as such you think "why do I need these anymore?" just remember why you were on them in the first place. There's a reason why you're taking them.

Give your therapy solutions a bit more time before deciding to gradually lowering your med dosage….and for your own sake do it gradually, not cold turkey. After this bout you know what that feels like. And even then you may find that meds are indeed an ongoing reality of life. That's just the way it may be, so prepare yourself for that if it turns out to be the case for you.

At any rate, I hope (and know) that you'll get a handle on this. I mean, you got this. If you've been dealing with this for 10 years, you know by now what can happen, what's possible. And by now you've probably figured out what's around the corner, how to predict what might be coming in the following days or months because you've been there before. Use that experience to help you get a better strategy in place. It always gets better if you work at it diligently.

At any rate, you know you're not alone in this, and I hope you feel better soon.

Thank you all for your advice. It's a little frustrating because finally I thought I was in the right track and I really was feeling better. I know I should've talked to my psychiatrist about stopping medication but I did I and still think that it's not what's really helping me. Zoloft has Ben the best antidepressant I've taken but just in terms of not giving me any side effects, not really in terms of feeling any better.

I think that what I'm experienced as you said is the withdrawal. Well, I want my brain to start producing its serotonin by its own! and now it's too lazy because the pill helped it? Ugh! Yes, I should've gradually decrease my meds dosage. Now I have to go to the psychiatrist anyway.

I also think that all of this is in my head and that I got depressed for just thinking I was going to get depressed for not taking the meds and not for the fact of not having meds actually. Does that make sense? Also, every time I've had a depression episode there's been a trigger (all of them breakups). Now that hasn't happened. I mean, my life has been pretty much the same miserable for the past six months. I couldn't even go to work this morning because I got very anxious about the fact that I was going to have to see people. I'm in that place right now where people scare me so I'd rather not talk to anyone because if I do I'm going to get angry at them for just about anything. I guess I'll start the Lamictal once again Since I still have those. Anyway, thank you very much for reading me and I look forward to reading you all.