Depression and Anxiety - Two Battles - One Enemy!

Do you ever get out of bed and it seems like the whole world around you is changing color?  No, not the colors you are seeing with your eyes.  The colors you feel in your mind?  I know what it is like to experience black days!  To go from sunny yellows to dark days when it seems like everything is terribly ruined and there is no hope.  It is called depression.  It is an enemy and - it is a liar!  Anxiety builds and fears compound and you just can't turn it off...  But there is HOPE!


The last thing you want when you are suffering from depression and/or anxiety is to talk to someone who has never experienced it for themselves.  You also do not want to talk to anyone who tells you - "If you didn't have sin in your life you wouldn't have depression!!!"  That just infuriates me!  It makes you want to scream "GET THE LOG OUT OF YOUR OWN EYE!"  But you are already beaten down and weary so you let it pass or maybe even agree when you know it's not true.  

I understand this because I have suffered from severe depression and anxiety in the past.  I am not sure what brought it on... no one ever really is! I was not more sinful than usual?  I was not running from God like Jonah? (He sure knew about depression!)  I just know that I began panicking during the day and feeling like I was living a nightmare when I would awake in the middle of the night!  I had no idea how to cope with it.  I had no idea how I could get rid of it. It is damaging to the individual and to their families, friends, co-workers, and sometimes even strangers!  But the truth is that God really is with you!  I had a hard time seeing that but my feelings were dictating what I believed to be the truth.  

After about a year and a half of depression and anxiety, I was ready to end it all.  I planned it out and was about to carry out my plans when in my mind I heard a thought... I believe it was the Holy Spirit.  He said, "What are you doing?  Come back!  There are people in your life that can help..."

I immediately thought of the Prodigal son. That's me!  I am that guy!  That was the year 1999...

I am assembling some Bible studies that really helped me during those times as well as some really good advice that helped me to get on the right path.  Pray for me as I build these pages and get them ready for others to read.  I am blessed!  I want to share about my Lord and I want to share about who God made me to be!  

And by the way... I may have a pretty good idea about what caused mine?  I'll share it with you later.

Send me any thoughts or feel free to contact me with your needs so Angie and I can pray for you.  They will be kept totally private.  GOD BLESS!

If you are considering hurting yourself or are considering suicide PLEASE contact a professional counselor by calling 1-800-273-8255 or call 911 and tell them what is happening.  There is always help out there.  Just ask.  

Sep. 2020  

ALL OF WHAT FOLLOWS BECAME BETTER WHEN I STOPPED TAKING ZOLOFT!!! But NO ONE should ever just stop! There must be a slow gradual withdrawal under the watch of a GOOD doctor. I took about three months to stop taking it lowering the dosage as I went every two or three weeks. If you can find a doctor that will actually listen to you ,they may be able to help. This is my personal experience and not intended to help diagnose or treat anyone else illnesses or problems... I found a lot of information at rxisk.com. I have learned a lot and just want to share it.

It was probably sometime around August or September of 2019 that my wife and I begin to notice that I was tired all of the time. I just had no drive or desire to do anything. All I did was sit in a recliner and stare at the computer screen... If I could stay awake! Not accomplishing much, I felt worthless. I went to the doctor about that and my eye problem in December but I did not get a testosterone Test until January. I received my first shot of Testosterone replacement then. It was down to 165. Again, a known side effect of SSRIs. I began taking a shot of 2 ml every two weeks and it helped a little but there are still times where I am so fatigued I didn't feel like doing anything at all and that is totally out of character for me. I am the energetic guy that has been ADHD all of my life. I could not sit still and suddenly I did not want to move. It was very disheartening for me. 

My wife began to notice a marked difference in my ability to remember short-term. My short term was not great to begin with! Being ADHD you just don't always soak in the hear and now! But it had progressively gotten worse over those several months and I was having trouble remembering things like names of people that I've known for a very long time. I had also begun using the wrong word for what I was trying to say. It was not an everyday occurrence but some days are worse than others. I have been a musician and a worship leader in church since I was 15 years old and I was finding it difficult to play the guitar and sing at the same time. I'm having trouble remembering the songs that I have known and played and sung for years. I play the guitar and sing. I may be playing in a particular key when all of a sudden, in the middle of the song I am playing in a different key from the rest of the band. At times it seems like the world is just a fog. It's like my mind wonders and it is not the correct thought for what is happening in front of me or for what I am doing.

My left eye began to move on its own right and left. Nystagmus  It happen quite a few times a day. I might go for an hour or two and it would not happen and then all of a sudden it might happen for the next couple of hours. Especially when I was driving or moved my vision from side to side. Those movements stopped in the first part of January. But as that condition began to subside my eyes were then out of sync. My right I would go where I looked and a split second later my left I would catch up. I also began to see a rippling effect. Looking at a large screen at the front of our church on Sunday morning with my left eye I noticed that I could see the letters and a fairly bright shadow above the letters and a Shadow just under the letters a little less bright than that. Another shadow above the other top one a little dimmer and another shadow that was barely perceptible under the bottom one - 5 sets. All of this is only with my left eye. My left eye watered all the time. It ALWAYS felt different from the right eye. It felt like pressure or swelling? Later my right eye would get lines in it as well.

In December I begin to get headaches just behind my left eye. I sometimes had headaches that were literally just in the left half of my head. That usually centered just behind my left eye in the temple area. Sometimes they were not very strong and other times, it was almost like a stabbing pain in the side of my head Just behind my left eye. 

from: 12/1/2019

Comments: There have been a few times when in my left eye the color is different than my right eye. It is as though I am looking through a camera filter. The color is washed out and maybe more yellow? It did this very many times and it happened in December-January. Turns out that my eyes were dilating.

I have experienced Anxiety and depression from time to time for a number of years. In 2016 I felt it was so bad that I needed help form my Doctor. He gave me a prescription to Zoloft. I had not taken any drugs for the problem in the last 20 or so years. It helped! I was as close to my old self as I had been is a long time. It stopped the suicidal thoughts. So, I kept taking Zoloft! After about 4 years something changed? I began to have numerous physical problems. Not extreme but... problems. I began to see a little black spot in oct. 2019. Then, over the next few weeks, a line began expanding out and turned down then across the bottom and then turned up and was squiggly. Then another dot next to the one and more and more lines. left eye only they never moved or changed. I have made drawings of them and over time they never change except there are more lines. 

I had been pushed from doctor to doctor and went to Dr. Dora Sztipanovits Mathe who is with the Vanderbilt Eye Institute. She was not at all interested in why I was actually there. She seemed determined to say that whatever was happening was "Dry Eyes" which turns out to be her specialty or something? She said I needed glasses. Of course, I do! I have been wearing them on and off since I was 15. That's not why I am here! Glasses don't make the lines and spots go away and they certainly do not stop a hormonal Nystagmus in the left eye! I requested to see an actual Optical neurologist at Vanderbilt in Nashville. I did. Two of them! Their exact words were "this is a problem that is beyond us." 

I waisted my time and money only to be sent to a cognative neurologist who consulted with the head of neurology at Vanderbilt. He said I needed more advanced testing and they sent me back to the optical nerologist, REID ALLAN LONGMUIR, MD, who seemed to have better things to do than to worry with someone with problems like mine. When I suggested that Zoloft could be the culprit and asked if I SHOULD GET OFF OF IT, his exact words were, "You could try it and see what happens?" WHAT? No, this is the safe way to do that or yes it could be that?? Surely he knew it could be the Zoloft? I didn't know how to get off of it at the time and because I am me - I researched it first in one those bouts of low energy computer sucking your time away sessions! Had I just stopped taking it, the sudden withdrawal could have cause severe withdrawal symptoms and possibly suicide! 

It was around this time that one morning around 4 am I woke up and immediately reached over to the night stand and picked up my 9mm pistol and was going to put it to my head and end it. But then I remembered the love of my life sleeping next to me and thought of the mess and shock it would be for her. I laid the pistol down and thought of Paul for some reason. I thought about him being on that ship headed for Rome when they found themselves in the storm of all storms! He said that they lashed themselves to the ship... The hung on and prayed for the dawn... I rolled over and held onto Angie and prayed to the Morning Star for the break of dawn. 

After doing some more research I found many news articles about Vanderbilt being in business with the drug companies and the fact that the drug companies donate large sums of money to the Hospital. I said all of that just to say, sometimes you have to keep looking for that one doctor who is true and actually cares. After driving the well over 200 mile round trip to Vanderbilt numerous times and giving them thousands of dollars I could not afford just to receive zero answers, I had become very disillusioned with Vanderbilt. 

I wished I could find a doctor that would actually listen that knew or at least wanted to actually figure out what was wrong. But they just passed me on to someone else and seem to think I had made it up or imagined it. But if I imagined it I have a fantastic memory – which i don’t, it is terrible – because I can make a complicated drawing of the lines in my eyes and they match the old drawings from 6 months before. But Vanderbilt doctors instead "there is nothing there". I left most doctor appointments feeling brushed off!

Then, a godly man who is a dear friend began to research and came to the conclusion that Zoloft was causing my issues! In the end He was right. Another friend told me about Kandarp B Patel, MD in Jackson TN. He said this door says heart doctor but he is a doctor of everything. Yes he is! The smartest man I have ever met and he actually cared about me! He has helped me so much. I have lost weight... almost 50 lbs.from my highest weight, and I am off of the Zoloft and feeling better than I have felt in years. There are still lingering side effects from the long term use of Zoloft but it could take years for some things to go back to normal and some things may never go back to normal. Brain shocks... I still have the darkest spots and lines in my eyes... other lines have gone away. Still have some foggy days but much more clear than before. I can live with that. I have started taking l‑theanine - a supplement - bought it at Walgreens after much research... This stuff really works! I started taking CBD oil 50mlg at least once a day and that really works as well. I have a friend that is now taking both and says it really has helped him too!  I am still an ADD adult and I still struggle to control that but, that is who I am! Be;iev it ore not, I have learned that it is a giant asset when it comes to studying and communicating God's Word as he reveals the truths of His Word to me. No more suicidal thoughts. I just want to know the plan God has for me! He has one! He can and does use me even when I think He can't. He has one for you too!