Depression Support Group
Depression is a real and debilitating condition that is often misunderstood by family and friends. Its meaning can range from a prolonged period of sadness to an actual mental illness with specific symptoms. Find and share experiences with others who are going through the same struggles.

I’ve become seriously aware and scared of something apparent to me lately! I have been having these weird medical problems for the past many months lately and every time I talked to any doctor about them they’d basically act like it’s something that’s in my head, and although at times inside this would make me feel insulted I’d always hope that we’re true. But at times these problems would be so severe that they would affect my functioning. At times even making me unable to take care of myself in certain ways! But I still went ahead with my life in a sense somehow. Now yesterday I was at the doctors to renew my employment insurance sickness benefit medical certificate for income I get lately thst needs to be signed by a doctor. And he actually used the words he was uncomfortable for me because for a girl my age my blood pressure which has been gradually going up lately at each monthly appointment is now at an abnormally high value and he tells me this yesterday after literally taking 8 tries with the blood pressure monitor because he thinks the machine may be malfunctioning, that’s how bad it was. He tells me to come back in 3 days so he can check it again to see if I need to go on blood pressure medication. For the past several weeks (or maybe months, I don’t have the greatest sense of time now, either), I have been struggling with my mental health, first I was in a manic stage of bipolar, then I reached a point of non drug induced psychosis which I am still in now, and then I reached a stage of depression which I am still in now as well. To fill in the blanks for you I am diagnosed bipolar, social anxiety, ADD and a nonverbal learning disability. I even had to speak to a crisis support chat administrator/counselor online one night not too long ago because I was that concerned with my psychosis. Within the same time frame as well I have had episodes of my legs having a tremor and feeling so weak and like jello so bad to the point that I couldn’t get them to carry me down the stairs, which when I relayed this to my doctor he called this a panic attack. Within the same time frame ALSO I have had episodes of myself breaking into such a sudden profuse sweat with no noted trigger as a result of the temperature or my anxiety that it has dampened my hair and poured down off my face and neck in embarrassing amounts. Within these past several months I have had a close family friend suddenly pass away prematurely and have struggled socially and financially and have been unable to work and have even had problems within my 8year relationship with my common law boyfriend which is normally an almost perfect one where we usually never fight! But lately we had a the biggest fight, as he has gotten this new better paying job that unfortunately requires he works a lot of the time out of town for weeks and almost months even, which strains us a bit In a sense that I’m always alone but I at least have our two cats here with me. However recently we had the biggest fight where I felt so alone because my friend helped me get the second cat which I’d been planning to get for quite a while and he got mad because he forget about us talking about it until I brought it up to him recently just before we went and picked the cat up (it was just born two months ago; I had planned to get her before she was even born from thst litter. My friend knew the Breeder and knew she was gonna breed this cat to have kittens for Last August and had her reserve one for me!).
I dealt with similar experiences for years and years before finally coming across a really good doctor willing to run the bloodwork necessary to 'rule out' medical issues before just calling my health issues psychiatric, and it turned out I actually had some serious physical health problems going on. I had felt for years that something was not right with my body, but doctor after doctor blamed all my symptoms on my mental health issues and never took the time to run any tests.
What might have been helpful (looking back) is if I had kept an ongoing journal of symptoms - neurological, cardio, lung, etc...dates, times, episodes.
You know your body best, so please keep advocating for yourself and if one doctor isn't taking you seriously, it's perfectly ok to go to another one, or to even go to a specialist. For example, if you are too young to be needing BP medications, ask your doc to refer you to a cardiologist for a full work up. If you have trouble breathing ask to be seen by a pulmonologist to rule out asthma. Doing this is how I eventually got diagnosed with the proper medical diagnosis and finally got the right treatments.
Hang in there.