TW: Mentions of suicidal thoughts and negative thoughts about food. 

Back in May and June of this year, I tried another MAOI antidepressant, Tranylcypromine; it actually works a bit differently to the other MAOIs I’ve tried, like Phenelzine and Moclobemide, so I was hopeful that it would be the best of those and maybe even more. This one was a tricky one to get because it’s so expensive (a month’s supply is £300 – everyone I’ve talked to about it has asked if it’s made of gold, which made me laugh because that was my exact reaction) but fortunately, I have a great psychiatrist and a great GP who made it possible. I wasn’t in a great place but I was cautiously optimistic that this one would be better.

As is always the case with posts about medication, this is just my experience. Please don’t start, change, or stop taking any medications without the advice and support of a medical professional. 

WEEK 1 (10mg Once Daily)

I was still struggling to sleep, not getting to sleep until after three in the morning, and then I’d sleep into the afternoons. I struggled to get up (probably due to both physical tiredness and my bad headspace) and doing pretty much anything – my week involved a stressful dentist appointment, multiple swims and hydro sessions, a meltdown, and more – had me falling asleep on the sofa as soon as I got home. And I was tired and sleepy all day, regardless of the hour.

I was very nauseous all the time and when I actually managed food, it wasn’t satisfying at all. So eating was tough.

The depression was solid, like it was darkening the edges of my vision at all times. I was also very anxious most days and I was really struggling with my concentration.

The chronic pain that had flared up wasn’t great but it was getting better. It was less than it had been and for that I was grateful.

WEEK 2

My sleep continued to be a struggle. During the day, I was tired and sleepy (and fell asleep on the sofa several times despite how wonky my sleep schedule was) but then I just couldn’t sleep at night. My brain kept going to scary places and nothing that’s helped in the past worked. I usually fell asleep sometime between three and five am and then I’d struggle awake in the early afternoon. I couldn’t shift it, no matter how hard I tried or what I did.

I was too depressed to do anything. I was completely paralysed by it. I was depressed and anxious and restless. I was struggling to concentrate. I felt overwhelmed and lost and hopeless. I was having suicidal thoughts again. I was desperate to distract myself from my thoughts. I nearly had another meltdown. I felt like something vital in me had been broken. I still do.

WEEK 3

Sleep remained the bane of my existence. I wasn’t getting to sleep until around five in the morning and one night I didn’t sleep at all (that was a particularly miserable day). I’d manage to wake up around three or so but feel sleepy straight away. And I was tired all day everyday but then I’d go to bed and just lie there, so anxious that my chest felt tight, so anxious that I couldn’t breathe; I just couldn’t calm my brain down.

I was still  very depressed. Nothing helped, nothing made me less depressed, or made me feel better. It was so bad that I just couldn’t engage with anything; I felt trapped with my thoughts and it was horrible. And feeling like that, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I just felt like crying and screaming. I was also really anxious. And I just felt hopeless, my suicidal thoughts a consistent buzz in the background. My OCD also became more difficult to manage; the compulsions felt even more suffocating than usual.

Food was also really stressing me out. I wasn’t enjoying it and it doesn’t seem to give me any energy, which – in my head – meant that I was just gaining weight and the thought of that made me very anxious. I’ve never talked to anyone about my anxieties around food and body image because it always feels like there are more pressing problems. Sometimes it’s easy to ignore and sometimes it’s all I can think about and this was the latter.

WEEK 4 (+ Zolpidem)

After so much disrupted sleep, my GP prescribed me Zolpidem to hopefully get a handle on it. As a result, my sleep cycle became very erratic: some nights I barely slept at all, some nights I slept for more than thirteen hours, some nights I slept at a normal time, some nights it made no sense at all. But regardless of that, I was still tired and drained and sleepy during the day.

I was still feeling awful. I was depressed and anxious with almost constant suicidal thoughts. I felt useless and pathetic and I couldn’t stop crying. I just completely overwhelmed and utterly hopeless. Even the most basic engagement with the world was excruciating but hiding away hurt too. I ended up retreating from everyone, both in real life and over social media. As I said, I just felt completely overwhelmed and paralysed.

After a rough session with my psychiatrist, I came off the Tranylcypromine. That was fairly easy, all things considered, and I did feel better. Well, ‘less terrible’ is probably more accurate: I was less sleepy, which made things easier, and I had periods where it all felt a little less oppressive. I also got better at blocking the world out, although I’m not sure that’s done me in favours long term.

As far as my psychiatrist is concerned, my options now are to either start taking Phenelzine again – the one antidepressant that has helped – or to look at other options. My anxiety around going back to Phenelzine is that I will just end up here again, when the side effects become too much to handle. So it feels like searching for another option is inevitable (but then I’m scared that another option won’t work and I should just accept what the Phenelzine can do but… And round and round we go). I have been referred to the Treatment Resistant Depression clinic (something I had no idea existed) to discuss what those other options are and we are also talking to a private clinic, trying to get as much information as possible. But, as hard as I try, I don’t know what to do next. I don’t know what the right choice is and no one else seems to know either.