u/Sendpiecks

I saw a post from r/askanything and the post was, "What is the most sick you've ever been?" I tipped my experience there but I thought I'd share it here too since it was a crazy time.

I had mono in high school. my parents always thought I was faking or exaggerating symptoms so they refused to get me help or let me take sick days. It started off as like a cold. I went untreated for almost two months and it progressively got worse. I was also in marching unit at my high school and we were about to go to a HUGE state competition, so I felt massive pressure to push myself.

I kept telling myself that it was just a bad cold even though I knew deep down that this felt more serious than that. Not like I could do anything about it though. My parents did not give a single fuck. So i just tried to push through.

safe to say I missed it. I would've been able to make it if I got help earlier. After marching band practice one day, the DAY BEFORE MY COMP, I fell on the floor in excruciating pain and exhaustion the moment i got home. Everything in my body ached. I was incredibly confused and disoriented. I couldn't get up on my own. I had a feeling of needing to pee and it just came out, it was blood. It was really strange and scary, being too weak to move a muscle or even call out for help. I was pitifully calling out for my dad who was upstairs in bed.

My dad didn't find me for like an hour. he took me to the ER when he did. I was so dehydrated that I couldn't do a urine test even after 3 IV bags. I got so skinny too, my weight was 30 pounds lighter than it was before. I started manically giggling and had so much energy after the IV fluids, and so hungry. I asked the nurse if she gave me drugs and she said no. This crazy energy I was feeling was from being hydrated once again lol.

My dad kept saying sorry and how he felt so bad. I have not forgiven my parents and never will. They did me so wrong. I missed an event that was so important to me and I unnecessarily suffered for much longer than I should've. it took me awhile to recover, and my energy/immune system is just fucked now. what started out as feeling like a cold was something that destroyed my body and almost die from dehydration.

I just started 100mg yesterday, not really sure how to feel yet. I was really worried about insomnia as it's something I've struggled with most my life, and it's a very common side effect. it's something I even take medication for. but all of a sudden I've been wanting to sleep all of the time.

I'm unemployed right now, so i've been letting myself just sleep. But this definitely doesn't feel healthy. I don't think I'm depressed. I WANT to be productive. I got stuff done today and im feeling mentally better than usual. But I'm so fucking sleepy! I slept for 14 hours today just because I could! Has anyone else struggled with this after increasing their dose?!?

I know there is no such thing as quitting at a bad time. I'm on day 3 now and I really do think I have a great handle on cravings and can see this through. However, on the same day I quit, I titrated up to 100mg on a medicine called Lamotrigine for my bipolar depression, and I genuinely can't tell if some of my physical symptoms are from quitting the vape or bad side effects from the medication.

Some include:
Sleep changes. I am able to fall asleep SO much easier now, and it's hard for me to stay awake when I wake up in the morning. I woke up at 7am this morning, made breakfast, was drinking coffee, and fell asleep again right on the couch tiI 1PM. I just suddenly started to feel really tired and couldn't fight it. I usually rip a vape first thing to "get energy", and I don't have that anymore.

Some more concerning changes include random pain around the body. I keep getting random spikes of pain my neck that go away after some time, it really fucking hurts and it scares me. I also experience pain in my chest, tightness, like it's hard to breathe. And my heart feels a little weird sometimes. fluttery. These symptoms scare me the most because these could be more serious side effects of my medication.

I'm also very depressed and anxious. I have "sticky thoughts." Which was pretty bad before I started to vape, I think the nicotine helped quiet that. It'd make sense if that was from quitting vaping. The chest tightness could be from my anxiety. But I am paranoid that it's my medication making me sick or not working for me.

I'm not asking for what you personally think it may be, just an overall vent. I really dislike the uncertainty of if what I'm experiencing is from the medication or the lack of vaping. I kind of quit on a whim, been contemplating it for some time so I figured fuck it. and have been doing solid with urge surfing. But I'm feeling a bit of regret now. This kinda sucks.

I'm supposed to go to 100mg in three days and I'm so scared. i've always had really horrible anxiety surrounding meds. it took me a really long time to start, even though i really needed to, because i have not only bipolar2 but also ocd. the ocd makes me obsess over researching side effects over all medication, and then i psych myself out of taking them. i also have some ptsd from a bad experience on effexor, that put me in psychosis and made me extremely sick.

i am on bupropion 150 xl and on lamictal 50mg. i started titration june 30th at 25mg, was supposed to go up to 50mg july 12th, and supposed to be at 100mg by july 26th. when july 12th hit and i took 50mg, i became really sick and was throwing up multiple times, and had intense anxiety in my chest all day.

august 12th was my appt. i was honest and told her what happened and that i've been on 25mg. psychiatrist told me to try it again. i reported passive suicidal ideation to her and no change really in my mood, and she said it's because i need to be at the therapeutic dosage with the lamictal. i felt annoyed and fearful but i decided to try again, and tried not to overthink it. i have been perfectly fine now on 50mg.

i chalked up that experience on july 12th to placebo from intense fear and anxiety about the titration, as bad anxiety triggers nausea in me. i experience a lot of physical symptoms with anxiety, not to mention fear of getting severely ill and/or experiencing psychosis again.

now im supposed to up to 100mg, final dose. and im more terrified than ever. please share your experience, the good and bad. because right now i might do the same bullshit i did july 12th. i know everybody reacts differently to medication but i want to try to take into account of what to expect, cognitively, emotionally, and physically.

for obvious reasons, i'm not going to say which medication it is, but it's a psychiatric medicine. it was a post that said "trying to cry while on mood stabilisers is like having to pee with a boner". i thought that was pretty funny, so i opened the comment section. somebody said in all caps, "DON'T TAKE THIS STUFF IT MADE MY HEART STOP". somebody asked which medication and they named the one that i'm on.

it took me TWO YEARS to go back on medication, even though i desperately need it, due to massive fear around psychiatric medicine; it took a massive amount of bravery and therapy around my fear to finally start, in june. i already had a pre-existing fear of medication my whole life, but then almost three years ago i had an incredibly traumatic experience on a new medication i was trying. i had a reaction that almost killed me, and also triggered psychosis. so there's probably an added component of ptsd now in addition to the unending rumination that ocd provides.

i'm so terrified it's not even funny. i did tons of research on my meds when i started and had to force myself to avoid compulsively searching information because it resulted in me stopping them in fear. psychiatrist is having me titrate up again now.

it's currently 4am and i've been gripping my chest/shirt repeatedly just trying to breathe and make sure that my heart is fine. i am so fucking afraid to go to sleep. scared i won't wake up, or also just the fact that i will have a nightmare of me getting sick on my meds.

i'm supposed to titrate up to the final therapeutic dosage in 4 days. and now i don't think i can do it. medicine is absolutely terrifying to me. i am scared that i may die in my sleep when i increase my dosage. or that ill have a medical emergency over the meds in general.

i'm so fuckung scared

So, this might not be something that'll happen gor the next month, because I'm titrating on a mood stabilizer right now and increase my dose in 2 weeks. I'm not on the therapeutic dosage yet, so maybe when that is increased and if that works for me, I'll be fine. If not, I'm heavily considering increasing my bupropion dosage.

I love it when I first started. I felt so happy. Everything felt brighter. I was productive. Social.

After two weeks, I feel I've reverted back to how I normally am, but worse. I get irritated quite easily, and have been experiencing suicidal ideation. And crying at night.

What was your experience jumping from 150 - 300 XL? Positives, negatives, all. I have always been extremely sensitive to medication which is why I am so nervous.

I got my license almost a year ago in late August at the age of 22. I'm 23 now. Here is a review of what that has looked like for me.

It took me so long because I was horrifically anxious of driving (and also failed three tests previously...) but I finally passed. I felt both happy for finally doing it, but also terrified. I did not feel like I deserved to be on the road. Like I'd inevitably get into an accident. My only time driving was around my suburban neighborhood. I never actually drove on the streets with other cars.

That same week, I got a job in a town 15 minutes away. I had my parents drive me there for the first month and back, despite having my license. It annoyed the fuck out of them. So on a weekend, they had me drive there with them coaching me in the backseat. And it was literally fine. I had to get on a highway, and take a busy roundabout, which was the most terrifying part to me. But I finally started doing it.

Every day for like five months, I was scared shitless behind the wheel. I never drove anywhere else. Just to work, and back.

One day I drove to work and realized when I got there that I did not experience any fear on my way there. This was victorious for me. I felt like i had conquered my fear of driving.

Then, after my job ended (i work at a school) I took a long train ride to see some friends I had in college to celebrate July 4th. They had plans to go to a lake with a field to light fireworks. Since I can't drink due to being on meds, my friend I was staying with asked me if I could drive them there because they were all going to pre-game. I immediately felt the anxiety hit me. I tried to be all chill about it like "Yea, sure!".

They all got drunk as hell while I was sitting on the couch with Google Maps on. I was reviewing the whole drive for like 10 minutes, studying it. I had to go on a highway. Get on an exit and drive some more. It was a 23 minute drive. I kept reviewing it over and over and felt panic creeping up. I felt the immense responsibility of my friends' lives, to get them there safely, and also take them back. I had a silent anxiety attack.

Another friend noticed something was up so we went on the balcony and I told him about how scared I was to drive them there. He tried to assure me that everything would be fine, and even said he'd hold off on drinking so he could drive us there instead. But he was wondering if I could drive us back as he'd like to drink there. I still felt horrifically anxious, but I felt somewhat OK with doing that.

Thank God, the plans ended up getting ruined because it started storming like crazy out of no where. We partied at home, I smoked a bit of weed on the balcony with them and we talked all night and played video games. But I'm not gonna lie, I felt like shit. By some short miracle I started driving for a FULL YEAR, consistently every weekday. But driving to unfamiliar places? Still COMPLETELY out of the question.

It's been like a month since then and I still feel extremely defeated. I know it's a feat to even be driving at all, something I felt was impossible to do, but I feel I might be scared to drive for the rest of my life.

My friends from college that I hung out with last month, I hadn't seen them for three years. When I reconnected with them that month, it was the happiest I'd been in a long time. They're such good people. but they want to plan to meet at American Dream. It's about a 2 hour drive for them and an hour and a half for me. They figure it'd be nice to meet somewhat in the "middle". I don't know how to tell them that I don't think I can do it. Or maybe I can, and should just try, because I have to get over my fear eventually. But I have never driven longer for 20 minutes. I don't know how new drivers can confidently make a trek like that. My cousin did that when she first got her license, and almost died in a car accident losing control of her car and landing in a ditch. I don't want that to be me...

I still have a long way to go with my driving anxiety.

Rant, but I'm also open to advice/criticism. Posting here because the r/ADHD keeps removing this post no matter how much I tweak it.

I have always struggled with executive functioning ever since I was little. I was diagnosed with ADHD in kindergarten, as well as some other learning disabilities. Due to the severity of my ADHD and etc., I was put in MD classrooms until I was in 8th grade. I am now 23.

My major task that I've been swearing I'll do every week all year is cleaning my room. It has not been clean since November of last year. I have a whole stack of papers with tools for executive functioning. I am medicated. And yet I still can't get it done.

I'll try to put things in practice. Breaking up the tasks because I usually get so overwhelmed that I don't even know where to begin. I'll start with my desk or something first. And I can't even do that because low dopamine tasks feel almost unbearable. I've always been incredibly impulsive, so I'll eventually either get bored or extremely overwhelmed and then go onto my phone and play games or doomscroll. All of a sudden, hours pass by and then I give up. I'll do it tomorrow, I tell myself. Then it's rinse and repeat.

What's the definition of insanity? Doing the same shit, every day, and expecting different results.

I feel like such a loser all of the time. I feel I have no excuse. It's genuinely my fault. I know I have disabilities, but I have the tools. And I still don't do it. What the hell is my problem?!? I only have myself to blame at this point.

i had a psychotic episode in 2023 that was triggered by an SNRI, incredibly amount of mental stress, weed/drug usage, severe depression, the works; i was really not taking care of myself and that was the result. i was able to get help before it got too serious, but it was a scary time. i had taped my curtains shut because i thought people were spying on me through my dorm, i stopped going to class and leaving my room in general, stopped going out to eat, seeing friends because i was paranoid that they were plotting against me, getting an hour of sleep every day for a week, i couldn't keep a single coherent thought, it was like thousands of thoughts all at once -- that was the scariest part imo, that and the random paranoia of everything.

i dropped out and was hospitalized, then went to outpatient, found the right meds, got a job, doing the correct adult things. i haven't had a psychotic episode since.

it only really hit me today how different i am now. i used to be really vibrant, clingy, loved connection, and extremely quick-witted. i always wanted to be around people. i was also an incredible reader and writer.

now i see the world in a different lens. i don't really know how to describe it. i'm very distrusting of people now, and super isolated. i don't really like interacting with people like i used to. my humor is gone. i'm very flat in personality, and struggle with basic reading now. i like being alone... but i don't think i should live like this for the rest of my life.

i haven't really discussed my psychotic episode with anyone, not even family, just my therapist i had when i was at outpatient. i feel a lot of shame about it and just don't like to think about it. but i'm somewhat upset by the way i am now. i just feel very empty. the world isn't as bright as it used to be, and i somewhat miss the way things used to be. i miss being funny. i miss being an avid reader, a creative. i don't really know if i can get that version back of me, or if this is just how i am now. i've been just trying to make peace with that, it's hard.

i have bipolar 2, and have gotten irritable, had some fleeting anger, but never genuinely angry. i've always been described as a chill, calming presence. but i've been in a depressive episode that's been different.

everybody, and i mean EVERYBODY pisses me off, to a pathological degree. like suddenly i can't even scroll on tiktok anymore because i'll find some reason to get annoyed at literally everything i see. oh, this person donated $1m to end world hunger because they want to feed their ego, something like that. like everyone has ulterior, evil motives.

i'm not too far gone i think, i can recognize that the way my brain is operating right now is fucking stupid, but i also can't break that MAYBE it's true. maybe my friends ARE annoying as fuck or only want to talk to me when it benefits them. they only feel like they have to check in with me so they could keep using me for whatever needed. i have shut EVERYONE out because EVERYONE pisses me off and i can recognize that this is just INSANE of me to think this way.

idk i'm bound to explode. i physically feel hot all the time from the rage i feel over people, the world, the fucked up-ness of everything. i'm so ANGRY AT HOW MESSED UP IT ALL IS

to some degree i know what im feeling is true. the world IS fucked up right now. everything is getting ruined and nobody cares. people are destroying the environment and nobody cares. i have to pay two trillion dollars to fill my gas and this is just how it's supposed to be. dude i am INSUFFERABLE! what the FUCK! but EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING PISSES ME OFF!

i've never really been "good", but i've been in an especially bad patch for the past two months. i have no life outside of work. i go home after work and then do nothing. i don't have any energy to. everything feels like a chore. i just stare at the wall for the rest of the day til i eventually get tired and fall asleep.

i have no desire for connection. friendships. people. the only thing that sparks a little life in me is my work as a special ed para, it brings out a little warmth in me and i genuinely love what i do. but as soon as i go home, the emptiness consumes me and everything is awful.

everyone has been pissing me off lately. which is something that bothers me the most because i can recognize that they're good people. my friends. family. but i feel nothing but animosity and see the bad only. i feel that they only have evil intentions or that they only want to speak to me to use me or some other weird ass shit that makes no sense. i literally havent spoken to a single one of my friends in two months because for some reason everything they do just angers me, and i know that's wrong, so shutting myself away seems like my only option because i think i will literally explode and say the most fucked up shit.

it's so crazy because this is not who i am. i've always been described as a gentle, comforting presence, someone to talk to, someone who people trust enough to confide deep secrets... i'm not a mean person and i hate that i am like this right now. and i don't see a way out. i don't know what is wrong with me. i don't crash out at people, literally never. but damn this wave of depression is incredibly more cruel than past ones.

i have so much good in my life yet i still want to escape and stop going because of my mind always working against me. the older i get, the more logical it feels to just y'know, check out. i'll always make "progress" and then hit the craziest fucking low ever, rinse and repeat. i'm so fucking tired. living a good and stable life seems like something i cannot achieve.

i've been feeling like this for awhile, it was just two months ago when i finally shut down. i kept doing the things i learned in therapy. exercise, socializing, creating, diving into passions, but it's never felt good. or like anything, really. i felt nothing from it. it just felt like a chore to keep my brain chugging, y'know? like i HAVE to do this because apparently it's supposed to help. well guess what it fucking doesn't.

TW for emetophobia.

I started taking 150mg of Buproprion XL and 25mg of Lamictal two weeks ago. My only side effect was light/heat sensitivity, and an increase in anxiety, but the anxiety was manageable. I would even go as far as to say that the anxiety is a little bit of a positive, as before I had like no anxiety at all, which made me ignore danger and not take shit seriously. Otherwise, it's lowkey been a positive experience for me. I've gone from severe depression, to relatively ok some days and mildly depressed other days.

Today I upped to 50mg and took both 25mg pills at once. I've had very severe nausea all day since then and have thrown up six times. Getting myself to eat before throwing up was extremely difficult. My anxiety is suddenly unbearable. I had to leave a birthday party because I had a very severe panic attack. Just rampant thoughts and feelings of impending doom, and my heartbeat was very fast. I was rocking back and forth for a good half hour rubbing an ice pack on my neck/face in an attempt to calm myself down, which kind of helped but I'm still extremely anxious and irritated for no reason. Sorry if this is disgusting, but i've also had crazy diarrhoea today as well. I'm severely dehydrated and trying to get fluids in, but even drinking water is hard.

And oh man, the light/heat sensitivity. It's not even that hot today and I felt like I was dying outside. Driving home from the party was rough like this.

If you're increasing your dosage soon and reading this, please keep in mind that I'm extremely sensitive to medication in general. I also have fears that I'm trying to overcome of psychiatric medication, so it's possible that that's playing a role in my anxiety.

I'm supposed to go up to 100mg in two weeks but I don't think I can do that anymore. I work a very high stress job and I know for a fact that I cannot get through work feeling like this. I don't want to wind up getting myself fired and/or start sucking at my job that I'm pretty good at.

I'm not sure what I should do. What i WANT to do is stick to 25mg. I'm still depressed, but it's not severe anymore, and this is kind of working for me right now. But maybe i should go to 50mg, and instead take one pill in the morning and one at night? I wonder if this will fade with time?? Idk man. I'm bummed and extremely miserable at the moment.

Edit: I'm not asking for medical advice, I'm venting about my experience and wondering if anybody else has ever experienced this or if this is typical for most with a dosage increase. I know the correct thing to do is to meet with my psychiatrist and explain this to her.

I've posted a few times about this in other subs but I have a massive fear of psychiatric medicine (meds in general, but specifically psychiatric meds. I've taken many SSRIs and SNRIs that have not worked for me and some of them gave me horrible side effects, I had a seizure once and also had serotonin syndrome and I believe I have PTSD over that experience. (I'm not diagnosed with PTSD so take that with a grain of salt)

It took way too long for my psychiatrist to realize that these meds were not working for me because I actually have bipolar 2 disorder, and SSRIs just inflate the fuck out of it.

After much convincing from my mom (moreso her forcing me to do this) I am now on psychiatric meds again for the first time since I got serotonin syndrome, because therapy alone and utilising skills has not been enough; I'm still bipolar, y'know? I kinda *have* to be on meds. My moods are out of my control.

My psychiatrist listened and gave me meds that will not trigger that reaction. But I'm still terrified.

I've been on Buproprion for two weeks now and started titrating on Lamictal. The only side effects I've been really impacted by are nausea, heightened sensitivity to heat, and insomnia. I'm also a lot more anxious than usual, but that's probably because I'm anticipating something horrible happening to me every moment of the day now that I'm on meds again.

I'm supposed to increase my Lamictal dose today. I haven't yet. I don't know if I will. I had a massive panic attack this morning and can't get myself to do it. i'm still freaking out. I don't think I can do this. This is too fucking scary for me.

I keep thinking about what happened to me two years ago. The pain I felt. I've been having nightmares about it and feel like I'm genuinely feeling the pain in my nightmare that I experienced. I get psychosomatic symptoms after taking my meds, that I only realize are in my head after taking as needed anxiety medication after. I do NOT want to get dependent on taking my anxiety medication, but ngl I have been dependent on it.

I can't help but be flooded by that memory every fucking time I take my meds in the morning. Thing is, I do think they're helping my depression, but the anxiety I'm feeling is fucking insane that I don't even know if it's worth the hassle.

I finished working my first year as a permanent aide for an 11 year old boy. This boy is audhd and is mostly fine, but very infrequently, will have explosive episodes of anger. I worked in an ERI room, so aggression was common amongst other students. I got CPI trained around february, so I started assisting for the last five months with the aggressive students, when before I would just evacuate the other kiddos when things got really bad.

My student had two episodes of anger through the year. Every time he would show signs of possibly having a big behavior, it would put everybody on edge in the room, because he is the strongest kid there. Even the two buff male paras struggled with putting him in a restraint. I never dealt with his behavior. For the first one, I wasn't allowed to touch him because I wasn't CPI trained. For the second one, another kid got triggered when my kid went off, so I had to deal with the other student.

Next school year, they are going to put me with him again. I was already anxious about working with him again, but I'm even moreso anxious after finding out they're moving him from the ERI room to the MD room. His mom was complaining all year about her son not being "challenged enough" academically, so of course admin is giving his mom what she wants. Thing is, he's absolutely not ready to move up. Everybody in my class agrees that this is a bad idea. I will not have any backup if he explodes, which he definitely will more frequently because he'll be tasked to do much harder work when he already could barely handle the work he was doing before.

This kid is larger than me. I'm very short. If he goes off, he will overpower me. I'm not going to act like him moving up is a good idea. I do really love that kid, but when he's angry, I'm terrified of him.

I heard a story of another student in the ERI room breaking his aides bones two years ago. My student is much stronger than him. I don't want to get hurt like that. Tbh, I want to refuse this assignment, but I'm scared that doing so will result in me getting fired. Have any of you ever refused an assignment before? Would doing so be a bad idea? Should I just quit while I'm ahead?

I'm working ESY right now with kinder and first graders in an autism room. This legit feels like a vacation compared to what I was doing before. Heading into work doesn't feel like I'm heading into battle. My assignment has had a meltdown almost every day, and I've gotten hit, my hair pulled, and bit. I'm sore after the first week, but I haven't gotten injured unlike before, as this kiddo is very small. I also feel I'm much better at deescalating and even prevented a major meltdown yesterday. I think I work much better with the little kids, mainly because I'm not shaking with anxiety. I think I worked very poorly with my previous kid because I was too scared to put hard boundaries on him and push him to do better. The entire room of paras was too scared to as well, and one para even advised me once to back off when I was trying to get him to do work when he hadn't done anything but be disruptive and talk shit for the past two days, because last time my student injured him.

I really hate being in this position because I do genuinely love this work, and think I'm good with the crisis situations and deescalation. I'm neurodivergent myself so I feel like I can really understand and connect with these kids on a level that the other paras can't. But I am too scared of working with this student again, given the fact that he's 100% going to have more frequent behaviors and I'm not strong enough to deal with him if he starts attacking me. I don't know what to do. I'm just not comfortable with this at all. :(

(23F) I will try my best to not make this triggering, but trigger warning for near death experience due to a bad med combo.

I have bipolar 2 and Adhd. The depression i have is so severe that I truly cannot live a good life. I've tried solely therapy and forcing myself to do good things for myself, like eating healthily and moving, socializing, but life is still incredibly gray.

Three years ago I was forced into outpatient because I couldn't even get out of bed most days, couldn't get myself to shower, I literally couldnt do anything. I was 20. Psychiatrist prescribed me a medication that interacts very poorly with one that i was already taking prior to going to outpatient. I ended up having serotonin syndrome. It was an incredibly traumatic experience that haunts me pretty much all of the time.

Shortly after that, I refused to touch medication, even OTC stuff. I remember having a splitting migraine and had to take something for it, and I was crying and having a horrible panic attack, and when I'd close my eyes I would go back to the event. I had nightmares all the time.

I did some pretty intensive trauma therapy, and obviously I'm not healed, this will most likely stay with me forever. But I stopped having nightmares as much, I was able to hold down jobs, stopped having flashbacks, leas afraid to rake OTC medication.

I spent the past year at a school job and I was realizing that my life kind of sucked. I'd go to work, then immediately go to bed as soon as I got home. I had lost touch with pretty much all of my connections. I could list pretty much all the symptoms of severe depression. I ghosted my therapist because I'd always miss sessions due to sleeping. Most of all, I just didn't care about anything to a very scary degree. I got into a car accident, and I was mad because it didn't kill me. That was kinda when it hit me that i'm not in a good place.

I still live with my parents, and my mom has been disgusted by the fact that I am living in a filthy room. She said that I need to get help again and clean up my space or else I'm gonna have to find somewhere else to live. This angered me because I already pay rent, but y'know I'm 23 and should have my own place by now.

She set up an appointment with a psychiatrist for me and told me like two days before and that I NEED to show up, and I need to take the meds. I'm taking wellbutrin and titrating up on lamictal. And of course, all of a sudden, the full fledged PTSD symptoms are back. I'm constantly in fear and anticipating something horrible happening to me again. I am supposed to increase my lamictal dose in two days and I honestly don't think I can do it.

Tldr, don't know what to do. It feels like no matter what path I take I'm just going to be miserable. I don't think I can heal from this. It's either be med-less and miserable for the rest of my life or be completely hypervigiliant and living in complete fear. There's no winning, ever.

trigger warnings - mention of near death experience, serotonin syndrome, and suicidal ideation

I started this medication almost two weeks ago along with titrating on lamictal. 150mg XL and 25mg lamictal. I was completely unmedicated before. it took some extreme convincing and bravery to get pack on meds; i have ptsd from a near death experience, had serotonin syndrome from a bad combo. But this medication doesn't fuck with my serotonin levels, my new psychiatrist convinced me to give it a shot. what other choice do i have. i've been suffering all my life.

First week was glorious. I was so happy and motivated, looking forward to the future. I am normally extremely isolated but i hung out with friends that i haven't seen or talked to in 2 years and had an amazing time. I was just so happy and energised.

These past two days have been different. things are bad again. i've been trying to put in work too because obviously medicine isn't a cure, it's a tool for improvement. but holy shit my negative thoughts are not only back, but so much worse than before. I'm ruminating like crazy, and all i feel is dread. I feel like i have a dark cloud over me. And i'm just extremely upset. I really want this medication to work for me. and maybe it's too early to tell, i know it takes like 4-8 weeks to really see, but holy shit I'm feeling worse than when i WAS unmedicated. i'm having some pretty extreme suicidal ideation and I can't sleep.

And in case it wasn't obvious from the fact that im taking lamictal too, i do have bipolar 2. but this swing from almost a manic like state to depressive is more severe than when i was unmedicated.

I'm going to stick with it, but i feel hopeless and i'm trying to resist my urges. my urge to give up this medication, urge to say fuck my job and life, and some more extreme urges. It's hard. I fucking hate being mentally ill.

So it's obviously way too soon to tell if this med is a good fit, I started this medication five days ago along with lamictal. I've been chronically depressed most of my life, with spits of hypomania here and there. I'm bipolar 2.

My main gripe with depression is that I generally don't care about anything. I float through life, my room hadn't been cleaned since 2025, I didn't care that I was bailing on friends, and when I did force myself to see people I felt nothing. I generally have to mask because of how flat my affect was due to depression. I got into a car accident a couple months ago and I literally didn't care. I was just like, oh ok that happened, and mutually agreed with the person who hit me to "not deal with the police" despite the damage done to my car.

Anyways, I'm on day five and HOLY SHIT! I care about things again! I literally cried yesterday because of how much I've lost due to depression. I'm rekindling old friendships and suddenly very driven to performing well in my career. I look forward to the future! It is so strange feeling so grateful and at peace. My brain is no longer dull.

Again, I know it's too soon to tell. Maybe it's triggering hypomania and I'll feel like shit again next week. But wow I'll take it.

If you are trained in ABA therapy, or have work with nonverbal children, PLEASE help me out.

(You can skip this paragraph if you want, but it gives insight on my little experience) I'm about to start ESY next week. Last school year was my first year as a para with ESS, and no offense, but ESS didn't really prepare me for anything. Despite that, I eased in, and did OK for my first year. I had a 5th grader with high functioning Autism and ADHD. All I really did most of the year was redirect him back to his work, deal with constant disruptions, and very rarely, aggressive behavior.

I was warned at the end of the school year that my student I was assigned for ESY is "very difficult", and I'm worried. Not because he's "difficult" (not my words, and I don't really like that wording) but because I don't feel very prepared. All I know is that he's non-verbal, entering first grade next year, and is a big eloper/biter.

I have no experience working with non-verbal students. I have no experience working with a kid that young. I have no idea what an autism classroom, nonetheless first grade classroom, looks like (I did ERI in the school year). I'll condense below what I'd love advice on.

-How to manage and work with him on eloping
-How to communicate with a nonverbal first grader
-Idk exactly, any advice helps...

I'm really worried and unprepared. I want to improve this little guys life, and hate that he's dubbed as "difficult" when apparently his teacher got fired for letting him be on a tablet all year long because she didn't want to deal with him. Poor kid is probably extremely regressed. Any good resources to study or tips? I am not ABA trained. I am CPI trained, that's all. I start Monday next week.

i will eventually delete this post because i'm paranoid of somebody who works in the same district as me seeing this lol. but i need to get this out there because this is honestly insane to me.

i work in an ERI room. i'm a first year para. one of the other paras in my room has a 4th grader kid with adhd, odd and dyslexia (he probably has autism as well but he's not diagnosed).

this kid can get extremely violent at times. It's usually twice a month. on my first day, i watched him strangle an aide. i've seen him spit, bite, scream, curse, strangle, pretty much anything you can name.

I just found out that apparently last year, he had beaten the fuck out of his aide to the point of multiple ribs being broken. During music class in front of many other kids and another teacher.

Yet, he's still here in a public school setting?? I'm new to all of this so maybe I'm missing something but this makes absolute ZERO sense to me. There are other kids in the class who have aggressive behaviors, but none to as severe of a degree as this kid. We can deescelate the other students, and it doesn't get as severe as this. THIS kid will go for HOURS, and it's like he becomes a totally different person.

Some backround info, he is on a cocktail of meds including antipsychotics, sees two separate therapists and has an absolute unit of a para with CPI, RBT and BT training so it's not like he's receiving a lack of support. He's receiving as much help as he possibly can get, yet once he's triggered, we have to evacuate the entire class out into the hallway while two aides restrain him because he gets incredibly dangerous. Sometimes we've waited for two hours for him to be deescelated.

I don't understand how a student like this is still in a public school setting. What's the bar??? Almost killing somebody? which literally almost happened already a year ago?

Our teacher quit last month unexpectedly and the new hire is a really tiny lady. He's just going to hurt more staff and the school will just let him get away with it and give no consequences. The most he's ever gotten was a daily suspension during the year I've been here. Principal and case worker give him whatever he wants when he's about to have a behavior because they don't want to deal with it, and the principal has actually gotten mad at us for "giving him so many reports" when he literally ASKED for them earlier in the year.

We receive no support and I'm kinda just done. I will return next year, but I will also not hesitate to quit if shit derails. I have a handle on the aggressive behaviors and think i'm decent at my job, but this severe aggression from this other student and nothing ever being done about it drives me crazy.

I work in an ERI classroom with 4th and 5th graders, and this is my first year.

My student is a great kid, I really do love him a lot. Most of the year felt alright. He had very few behaviors, and mostly struggled with getting distracted and needed redirection.

April was when things suddenly started going downhill with his overall mood and attitude towards school. His usual silliness and consistent smile started slipping away. He's grown a little more moody and isn't as nice and sweet as he used to be. His behaviors went from very rarely, to maybe once or twice a week... and now, it's like every other day. Fact is, he's regressed.

I think a large part of it is the fact that he has developed an extremely poor sleep schedule. He stays up late, and has even admitted to pulling all-nighters a few times too, playing video games all night. He has unlimited access to his phone and a serious screen addiction, and lack of sleep is a massive contribution to behaviors. It's frustrating, because his mom has been made well aware of this, but she's a single mom and honestly I think she's afraid of him and too busy to really enforce rules. Mom tried to take his phone away once because he slept all week during school, and he ended up punching her. His behavior seemingly descented ever since.

My student becomes defiant when he's tired. Everything is always met with no, and it's actually really atypical to how he was most of the year. He doesn't want a break, but he also won't do his work, and starts being extremely disruptive and unsafe with his body, and has a very low frustration tolerance. I feel like he's forcing himself to stay awake because I asked him to take a nap and it really feels like there's no getting him to listen when he's like that.

I know defiance is common working with special ed students, but honestly, I don't know how to handle it most of the time. I'm a first year para in a room with kids that have aggressive behaviors. I really want to help him because i DO care about him, but damn it I don't know what to do right now.
He really wasn't like this most of the year, but he's regressing a lot right now and I kind of like I'm failing him because I don't know how to navigate through this as I had literally no prior experience to this before working at this school. I got hired by a company that seemingly hires anyone with a pulse because they're desperate for paras, and most are floaters or quit.

they put me with this kid because they'd been looking for a permanent aide for him for weeks. I applied in late September and got the job almost immediately.

I was honestly terrified when I first started, I work in a tough classroom and was shocked by the degree of severity in behavior from the other students, but I absolutely loved the kids. They're all a great bunch and that was what made me want to stick around.

But after seeing my students rapid decline I've realized that loving them is not enough. I either have to get better at this or not return next year. I've been really sad by this realization. I feel like it's my fault. Maybe he wouldn't have regressed like this if he had a more qualified aide.

I was trying hard most of this year to learn but honestly I've become kind of burnt out and I'm not as focused as I used to be at work. I've been performing like SHIT because i'm running on fumes.

tldr, i'm an unqualified aide and I feel like a fuckup. My student and I had a strong bond for most of this year and was a rather easy kid, but he has regressed and I feel like it's my fault and that I'm not helping as much as I could. I feel like a major disservice despite my efforts and I'm not sure if I'll return next year despite my passion for my kid and the other kids. Like I said earlier, love is not enough, I either have to improve my skills and learn more this summer or leave.