Hello cysters, I just need to blow off some steam I guess, so thankgod for this website. I've been reading some of the other posts and I can't believe how similiar everyones feelings are. We seem to share so much yet we always feel so alone. I feel like i'm drowning. I was thinking about it last night while trying to fall asleep for the umpteenth time and this is the most succinct way ican describe it...
when I was a kid I felt like l could walk on water..run on water even. Then, in my teens...going through puberty and the angst teens go through I felt like I was wading through water..waist deep, a bit of a struggle but i could move. Now I am treading water and have been for a long time, and i'm getting so tired. It is up to my chin and I have to struggle to breath. I am in an inbetween world, neither alive nor dead, just struggling to stay afloat. It would be so much easier just to stop kicking and sink down below the surface...but i know if i do I shall never come back up. I don't know how long I can continue to kick and it scares me. I just wish I could swim to the edge, but the edge isn't even in site so i don't even know which direction to go in. Has anyone ever made it the edge? I just want to flop on the bank and feel the sun again.
Please don't give up deetee! I too was in a very similar situation to you and I couldn't see any future free from emotional pain and awful physical symptoms. I felt like I was just existing and not really LIVING my life. I was overwhelmed by the simplest tasks and was so depressed I wanted to die. I thought things could never get better but I managed to turn my life around and now I am living life to the full - I look better and I feel fantastic (most of the time anyway.)
I felt completely out of control and had no sense of direction. All I knew was that if I couldn't get my life together then it didn't seem worth living as it was. I had lost interest in just about everything and I didn't enjoy much anymore. I have suffered on and off with depression since I was 12 - I'm now 33. My last (hopefully my last!) bout of serious depression began in 1999 and I gradually came out of it last year. Don't get me wrong, my life is not all roses - there are still bad days but I am far better equipped to cope with them.
My life spiralled out of control due to a misdignosis of Epilepsy in 1999 ( I WAS having seizures but they have since turned out to be caused by my Dr overmedicating me with Thyroxine!) During this time I was put on many different anti-seizure meds, which had horrific side effects both physically and mentally but I still continued to have seizures. I became very withdrawn and depressed but the Drs refused to listen when I insisted I didn't have Epilepsy - they said I was in denial! I ended up taking a high dose of Prozac (which I believe saved my life) but the Prozac caused other side effects, so I was px'd something to counteract this - there were side effects from this med too - so I was px'd another drug to counteract this. Before I knew it, I was taking a cocktail of highly dangerous meds and I lost sight of my entire personality. My once vibrant nature disappeared and was replaced with an anxious 'shell' of a person, scared of even my own shadow! I took so much medication, I should have rattled!
I was sent to see a Psychiatrist and this was the turning point for me. Not because he was so wonderful - just the opposite in fact! He was a complete and utter idiot. Talk about the patients running the mental hospital - this man should have been in a straight jacket in a padded cell! He diagnosed me with somatisation disorder, which basically meant that he thought I had invented all my illnesses just so I could take all these meds! He even thought I had somehow faked my Hypothyroidism and PCOS symptoms too, depsite the evidence of the blood tests which had confirmed the diagnoses. He came to this conclusion after I made the mistake of saying that I would rather have my life shortened by taking any medication which might improve my quality of life, rather than live a long, miserable life without meds. He took it to mean that I just wanted to be on medication regardless. So he took great pleasure in telling me I had to come off EVERYTHING I was taking - including my allergy meds, asthma meds, Spiro (for PCOS) Epilepsy meds, Anti-depressants etc, etc right down to my Thyroxine!
Obvioulsy I was petrified about what effect the sudden stopping of these meds would do to me, so I went straight back to my Dr, who thankfully disagreed with this ridiculous idea. However my Dr decided to send me back to the Neurologist for a second opinion about my 'Epilepsy' and the Neurologist decided that maybe the shrink was right about me not having Epilepsy after all. So I was told to come off my anti-seizure meds. I had taken them for about 2 years and it took me months to withdraw and I had severe withdrawal symptoms. I came off the Prozac too and the other horrible 'mind bending' meds. It took a long time but gradually I began to 'feel' again. Then my seizures gradually stopped. I was left to cope with all this on my own with no medical supervision and I didn't know how to cope with my life anymore - I felt better in many ways but the meds had taken their toll on my personality - especially my confidence and I realised I had to rebuild my life again.
For over a year I muddled through, just happy to be off all the unnecessary meds but I still felt very tired and lethargic and would get short bouts of depression. So I decided I was going to sort my health problems out once and for all, which is when I came across this wonderful site - it gave me hope. I discovered I have IR and Hypoglycaemia and blood tests confirmed my suspicions. I decided to begin low-carbing in February, after reading about the many benefits of this WOE and I haven't looked back. I have lost weight (28lbs) effortlessly, for the first time since I gained weight at 19. I have just about 'cured' my severe menstrual cramps, mood swings and PMS. I have found the energy to exercise for the first time in 8 years and I enjoy it too! I look healthy and I feel healthy! But, for me, the biggest difference is how I feel emotionally/mentally. I don't get the blues as often these days - in fact I used to cry every day and not even know why, these days I still cry over sad things but I don't dwell on the negative things in my life. That's not to say there aren't any, I just have things in a better perspective now.
I truly believe that low-carbing has given me my life back. The way my body (and many cysters bodies) reacts to sugar/carbs means that if I eat high carb foods such as potatoes, pasta, bread, cereal, cakes, candy, rice, etc. I experience huge spikes in my blood sugar and insulin levels and I can see how my mood reflects these peaks and troughs. I know giving up these foods is difficult and some people wouldn't want to do it but to me having the choice between radically changing my lifestyle or continuing to live with depression and many other horrible symptoms, there really was no contest. I could never go back to how I was - it was too horrible. I have clarity of mind these days, which is the best way to overcome negative feelings. I go for walks and drives out to the countryside to see the newborn lambs and to look at the wonderful coastline and it takes my breath away to see such beauty. I am so thankful I am alive and that I didn't take my own life, as I so very nearly did.
I'm sorry this is so long but I just wanted you to know that there IS light at the end of the tunnel. If you can make small, consistent changes to your lifestye, I am sure you can come out of this, feeling better than you could ever imagine. You can be 'walking on water' again, just like when you were a kid! If someone had told me in the midst of my depression that I would be feeling so great in 2003, I would never have believed them but it HAS happened for me and best of all I did it myself - just like you can! I know you can do it, we all support you here. If you need to talk to anyone please email me. Best wishes.
Dearest Nikki, thankyou so much for your reply. Its nice to know someone is listening and cares. I'm very sorry for all that you had to go through. I don't know if I would have had the strength to do what you've done in the same situation. You've accomplished so much. I hope you're right, I hope I can turn things around...i'm sick of feeling dead inside and scared of everything. I've heard a lot of stories about how lowcarb can be a huge help and can turn things around for a lot of women..i know i need to do this too. I've tried many times but can't stick to it. I feel so low that I find solace in junk food..chocolate, ice cream etc...and without those things there's just me. me and my mysery. I need to somehow find the strength to stick to it I know, because only then will i start to see the improvements that possible. At the momnet its a case of getting through one day at a time, and i use junk food as my crutch to get through. I know its possible to come out of this, I just have to keep believing i am strong enough to do so. Thankyou again for your encouraging words...I am so proud of you for fighting and winning. Lets hope in time, I can do the same.
deetee, what you wrote up there brought tears to my eyes because that's exactly how I feel. I feel like i'm just floating through my life and not really living it, just watching life pass me by. Everyone else around me is living their life but not me, and i'm left behind. It's weird but I've been feeling like this for years now. In my mind I have a somewhat clear picture of who and what I want to be, the things I want to achieve, things I want to do, but when I take a look at myself I'm so far from that picture. The sad part is I don't know how to get to that picture, and the longer I feel like this, the further from the picture I stray. It's definitely gotten worst now. I'm very depressed, but when I think about it I've had at least some kind of depression for as long as I can remember, I think even when I was a kid. However it's definitely gotten worst. I constantly feel like i'm flailing in an ocean of water and my feet can't touch the ground and I can't swim and I'm trying to come up for air and I'm desperately trying to hold on to nothing because there's nothing to hold onto. Sometimes I have feelings of emptiness or nothingness. It's like I'm alive but I'm really not, feeling like I don't really exist. Reading through these posts I find that we all have a common thread and we all have similar feelings. It's comforting to know I'm not alone in this. Anyway I'm thankful we have a place like this were we can blow off steam.
--All I want to do is hide from the world and take a break from reality and that's just not possible because time stands still for no one and before I know it I'll be a "has-been" without ever being a 'was'--
I really feel for you ladies. I have been at that horrible place several times in my life and I hope to never return but I have to accept that my depression has been a recurring problem for over 20 years and these days I just try to ride it out rather than ignore it, as I know that inevitably it WILL pass.
deetee, you really may find that low-carbing will help you in so many ways but if you are a junk food addict and a comfort eater, you would be best taking things in small stages, so that you can make the changes gradually. That way you're more likely to stick to it. My suggestions would be to have a 'talk' with your self and be kind to the real you inside. I don't know about you but I used to have silent mental chants like 'I'm so fat and ugly,' 'I'm useless and worthless,' 'I hate myself,' etc. It is true that you are what you believe and if you keep telling yourself these negative things, you will feel them intensely inside, until you feel numb with the pain. Try to spend a couple of minutes every day telling yourself that you are going to get better. It's hard to tell yourself that you love yourself but it's what your inner self deserves and yearns to hear. Don't rely on others to tell you - it doesn't matter how much they tell you if you don't feel it inside. I say to myself, 'I know things have been tough and I sometimes feel out of control but I'm going to get better for ME,' 'I want and need to get better and I AM going to do it,' 'I'm going to feel proud of myself because I'm going to achieve my dream this time and make it reality'
Maybe you could promise yourself that you are going to change your diet and lifestyle because you deserve to feel better. Then gradually replace the junk foods with foods which are going to make you feel better. Start by just changing one meal a day. Some of the foods, which we have been told for so long are 'bad' for us, aren't necessarily bad at all, like meat, eggs and cheese, etc. These foods are high in protein and they make you feel more satisfied than foods loaded with carbs. High carb foods make you feel hungry again not long after you have eaten, which is your body's natural response but it makes us feel guilty that we are feeling hungry if we have not long ago eaten - low carbing changes all that. The guilty feelings disappear because you don't feel that intense hunger and therefore you naturally eat less because the protein and fats make you feel full quicker. Most carb addicts could probably eat nearly a whole loaf of bread without batting an eyelid (I certainly was like that) but if you had to eat the same quantity of meat or cheese say, you would struggle to get through half the amount!
The reason carbs make you hungry is because when you eat foods high in carbs, your body has to produce lots of insulin to turn it into glucose to transport it to the cells to use as energy. If you have IR, you body produces way too much insulin and the excess insulin is stored as fat. Insulin is a growth hormone and also an appetite stimulant, therefore if you eat a diet high in carbs and your body has to pump out lots of insulin to deal with it, it may lower your blood sugar too much, signalling you to eat again (to return the blood sugar to normal.) It just goes on in a vicious circle if you keep eating high carb foods. The more carbs you eat, the more often you will feel the need to eat. People think that losing weight is all about willpower but it is only this way if you eat low fat/high carb because if you low carb, you won't even feel like you are dieting, as you won't feel hungry. Low-fat foods are unsatisfying because in order to be lower in fat they have to be loaded with carbs.
If eating food makes you feel guilty and you chastise yourself for your 'lack of willpower' you will feel bad about yourself and will punish yourself for being so 'weak' but you aren't being weak, you are just responding to your body's natural response to the insulin it needs to produce to cope with all the carbs. No wonder that we get ill, when our bodies spend so much time in this predicament - our systems don't have enough time for anything else and we become physically and emotionally stressed. Other important things that our body needs to deal with get put to one side, as we get bogged down with the issue of trying to keep our blood sugars stable (an impossible task if we keep eating massive amounts of carbs.) Lowering your carb intake gives your body a break and it will thank you for it. It will then be able to work on other parts of you that it has been forced to neglect.
I am not saying low-carbing is simple. I found it dreadful for the first two weeks and wanted to give up. I never thought I would ever be able to sustain it and I wouldn't have, if it had been that difficult indefinitely! But thankfully it is only a temporary phase and it does get better. I suffered terrible withdrawals and I have read that however many days you feel lousy for, indicates the amount of time it is taking your body to repair your insulin receptors (which stop working efficiently due to the excess insulin produced, if they don't respond properly your body panics and pumps out some more insulin and what is left over gets stored as fat.) For some people the withdrawal period may be 2 or 3 days, for others a couple of weeks. Whilst you are low-carbing your body is without the extra pressure of the high carb intake and it gets a chance to repair your receptors. Once it has done this, all of a sudden you feel fantastic and the cravings disappear and your energy levels rise. It's such a wonderful feeling after years of feeling sluggish and moody!
There are also natural herbal supplements like Chromium, which you can take during this time, they help lessen the withdrawal effects and reduce your carb cravings.
I truly believe that eating junk foods makes you feel like junk. You know that you deserve better than that. You need to relearn exactly what your body needs to function properly again, then in time your depression will lift and you will feel strong inside again. If only I had known about all this a few years back, I may not have had to go through all my 'crap'! But that's life and I guess I have learnt a lot from it. I wouldn't be able to understand how you guys are feeling if I hadn't been there myself and if I can help anyone just a little then it has been worthwhile.
Maybe think of it like this - you guys are treading water and are scared that you won't be able to keep going for much longer and you might drown. What if low carbing is being dangled in front of you and it just might be the answer to getting on the road to recovery? Do you keep treading into oblivion, or do you take a chance into the unknown? You know that where you are right now is not a desirable place but you don't have to stay there - there are other options, you just haven't seen them yet. We cysters are all holding our hands out to you and we will help you get there, if you let us. You don't have to do this alone. Lean on us and we will do our best to get you through this
I know that you can do it - both of you. You have to take the first step and that is *believing* that you CAN do it. I would never have thought my life could feel this good a few years back and now I thank God every day that I have this chance to live life to the full and I'm not going to waste it. Low-carbing has given me the second chance I used to only dream of. If you give it a chance maybe it can do the same for you too?
Good luck ladies - I am sending you lots of strength to help see you through this.
I don't FEEL anything anymore 
I made it to the edge! 
He diagnosed me with somatisation disorder, which basically meant that he thought I had invented all my illnesses just so I could take all these meds! He even thought I had somehow faked my Hypothyroidism and PCOS symptoms too, depsite the evidence of the blood tests which had confirmed the diagnoses. He came to this conclusion after I made the mistake of saying that I would rather have my life shortened by taking any medication which might improve my quality of life, rather than live a long, miserable life without meds. He took it to mean that I just wanted to be on medication regardless. So he took great pleasure in telling me I had to come off EVERYTHING I was taking - including my allergy meds, asthma meds, Spiro (for PCOS) Epilepsy meds, Anti-depressants etc, etc right down to my Thyroxine! 
I know you can do it, we all support you here. If you need to talk to anyone please email me. Best wishes.
