Messages

I feel I am not recovering. I have been battling anxiety and depression for most of my life. Last year I discovered I had C-PTSD due to childhood bulling, child sexual abuse, and growing up in a domestic violent environment; as well as ongoing trauma of domestic violence in my adult life, rape and the murder of my second child when he was a baby at the age of 6 months. I have been receiving counselling for the past five years. I have tried to go back to study after raising my children, but have not been able to complete my studies due to anxiety and depression. I am currently taking medication prescribed by my psychiatrist and it is increasing my anxiety due to my religious beliefs that it is wrong to put unclean substances into my body. Counselling only helps for a short time and often increases my anxiety and depression due to reliving the trauma and increasing my triggers. I have applied for the disability support pension as I am unable to work due to my anxiety and depression; but have been told that my application has been rejected due to the fact that they think I will be able to work within a two year period, with further treatment and medication. I do not believe I will be capable of getting a job within that period of time. I have asked my psychiatrist to write a letter to explain that further counselling and medication will not improve my condition within 2 years; but he has said that he can not do that because he has not been treating me for long enough. My psychologist has said that I need long term psychotherapy over several years to be able to manage my day to day stressors and triggers, however, she can not write a letter to support my claim because she is not a clinical psychologist yet. She is on the register for clinical psychology and is supervised by a clinical psychologist, but still has four months left before she can be a registered clinical psychologist; therefore, they will not accept a report from her. Right now I feel like I will never get better. The stress is too much for me. I have also recently been diagnosed angina, which is stress related. My psychiatrist has increased my medication, which I do not think will help as it will probably cause me to be more anxious or it will cause me to be emotionally numb or will make me lethargic and not able to do anything. I told him I want to try a natural way of treating my anxiety and depression and he told me I was just wasting his time; which made me even more anxious and depressed. I feel like everything is hopeless. I am 61 in a few weeks and I feel like I will never be able to gain employment because of my anxiety and because I have not been employed in over 40 years. I have no experience and my fears are overwhelming.