Psychiatry Medication

Bismillah. Assalamualaikum...

Hello, readers! Alhamdulillah I'm back here again. I wrote this post last night but I failed to post it because my laptop started lagging. It begins here ; I've been sitting in front of my laptop too long now, fidgeting and figuring out what should I write. I just want to write something but I don't have specific topic in my mind. Hmm when was my last time sharing about my mental illness thing? Yeah, I don't remember. I bet you may not too. So I think I'll give the mentioned title above a try.

Diagnosed with mental illness since 2019 and now I'm already in my fourth years as a patient, I had been treated with kinds of medicine which were changed after certain period following changes in pattern and severity of my symptoms and condition. Diagnosed with Major Depression Disorder (MDD) in 2019, I had been treated with antidepressants such as sertraline, venlafaxine, and agomelatine. In the following year, my diagnosis changed into Bipolar Mood Disorder 2 (BMD2) until now, treated with mood stabilizer named lamotrigine.

Sertraline was my first antidepressants. After attending many appointments with doctor every two weeks and updating them with my condition, she changed the prescription into venlafaxine. This is because sertraline did its work too slow. My symptoms neither got any less severe nor my condition was improving. Unfortunately, venlafaxine did worst. For a whole month, I had continuous headache, fatigue, and diarrhea. Of course, my symptoms remained severe. I asked doctor to change my medicine and I started consuming agomelatine. Finally, good changes happened. I started experiencing a period of feeling "okay and living". However, the period was short which was between 3 to 7 days only. Meanwhile, the depression symptoms were still severe and its period was longer.

Moved to 2020, I was diagnosed BMD2. This was because I had experienced hypomania many times. Hypomania is that period of feeling "okay and living". Doctor said it was common for MDD patient who was treated with agomelatine (and showed improvement) would had their diagnosis changed into BMD2. With mentioned diagnosis, I started consuming lamotrigine. The optimum dose is 200mg. I begun with 25mg. The dose was added from time to time following improvement in my condition. Now, I consume 200mg lamotrigine, 4 pills every night. Compares to my MDD year, I'm 90% okay. Depression bothers me least. But anxiety is still a great deal.

What a journey. What a process. Who knew I would encounter mental illness in my mid 20's. Who knew I would had to fight with the urge to end my life everyday. Who knew I would discovered knowledge related to mental health and illness issue and self taught myself over years. What a different kind of survival. I thought I won't make it out. I felt it intensely every time I tried to give my all to survive. It might seems I did everything alone. But now I'm very sure I'm not. I believe there are quiet prays from kind hearts and blessings from Allah SWT. I can feel it. Alhamdulillah.

When Allah said "I test only those I love", I took the pain like it was an honor. - Abu Hurayrah