I haven't been on the boards much lately and tend to skim a lot but your posts caught my eye today because they scream out your pain. I am so sorry you're in so much pain.
The fatigue you're describing say classic depression to me. I understand because I've been through this too. May I offer my perspective in case it's any use:
I was severely depressed for a few months this year. I have been clinically depressed before, ten years ago. At that time I was prescribed antidepressants and were on them for 6 months. They helped me function much better, but I swore never again, because I realised that while I stopped feeling the pain, the source of the pain never stopped. The argument is that the antidepressants allow you to cope to address the issues that are creating the imbalance, but I didn't do that - went off in lala-land and glossed over the difficulties that brought me there - therein lies the danger of medication. Pain has a lesson to teach. Take away the pain and you might forget the lesson, or fail to learn it altogether.
My belief is that unless your depression stems from a purely chemical imbalance, eg. postpartum depression, antidepressants will only treat the sympton of the depression and not the cause. The cause here is the mental response to the challenge before you.
On my therapist's advice I tried 3 antidepressants. None worked so I stopped. I don't regret it although it would have given me an easier time of it at the time. I have a neighbour who is in our sitch as well. She is on antidepressants and for a while I was totally envious of her and feeling badly about myself because whenever I saw her she looked bright and sparky whereas I was a gibbering mess. I saw her recently - the spark has worn off. The medication can give you false courage, false optimism.
A friend of my MIL's has been on antidepressants for the same reason for the last 10 years. She doesn't have the courage to look at the pain and work through it. Every time it hurts, she pops a pill. That's her choice. That's not a choice I want to make because to me, that's saying the pain owns her. I am going to own this pain. Pain can be crippling or transformative. You choose whether to live crippled or transformed.
To me, owning the pain is to work through the issues, accept what's happened and move on. It's going to take years. But better some years than the rest of my life sacrificed to the altar of this pain and misery.
I am NOT saying not to take the medication. I am saying that the medication will alleviate your symptoms, but do not expect it to solve your problems. That's the hard work - work which requires you to change how you are approaching your situation.
I speak as someone who recognises your thought processes very well. I hope you don't mind my making this observation, but you and I are negative people. We have negative thought processes. I am battling daily to change this. And I am changing. It is possible. Just this morning I was remembering a reaction I had to some snotty nosed kid a couple of years ago. Now I would totally shrug it off. It was interesting to me - I am becoming a different person.
You are clearly extremely unhappy. Which is understandable given our sitches. But you don't have to stay in this place. To climb out of this black hole, you have to do some re-wiring of your brain. Reframe your thinking, perspectives. It's a struggle. You will essentially have to wrestle with yourself. And nobody is more well-matched to you, than you.
I have a lot of pain still, but I am not unhappy the way I was a few months ago. This has been a revelation to me - you can be in pain but have faith that things will get better. Expect things to get better.
I wonder if you're struggling because you're not quite ready to accept the situation, because this was the case for me. For months I heard the same advice, not only from this board but everyone who knew about my sitch - move on, GAL, practice PMA etc. I understood it intellectually, but not emotionally. Because I wasn't ready. Until I was emotionally ready, it was all just words to me. You must be patient, not just with your sitch, but with yourself. I was getting frustrated with my life all the time - I was doing all the right things, so why weren't things getting better? Why was I still obsessing? Answer - I wasn't ready to let go. So just sit with it and hold on to our ragged obsession for a while, forgive ourselves for doing so, and try again. Just don't get mad at yourself for not doing it already.
For me, I wasn't ready until I hit rock bottom. You will know once you hit rock bottom. It will be the worst place in your life. But I was surprised to experience some relief at the same time - because I recognised I was rock bottom, I knew things couldn't get worse. And once you hit rock bottom, there's no way else but up. One painful inch at a time.
I am looking into reading things about changing how you think. A book I found yesterday is madly fascinating - 'Mental Chemistry'. Only got as far as the first chapter, but wow - the implications for people with negative thinking is nothing short of astounding.
