A brief summary of Clare's story

[Anna]

It is hard for me to think because my thoughts get scrambled, but here is an attempt at summarising what has happend to me over the past few years. I was a bright, enthusiastic, energetic university student in 1999. Halfway through the year I became pregnant with an unplanned pregnancy. This placed me under a great deal of stress as I was in an unstable relationship and had never planned to have a baby. William was born in March 2000 and a few months later I was diagnosed with Major Depression with Psychotic Features. Over the next couple of years I managed to struggle through a couple more university degrees. In January 2004 my ex partner (William's father) in an argument put his hands around my neck and squeezed so I coudn't breathe. I had not much reaction until a couple of weeks later when in a flashback my heart started beating really fast and I was shaking all over. I went to a doctor and asked for information about panic attacks. The doctor was unhelpful and didn't give me any information. I was crying and shaking and the medical centre receptionist could see something was wrong and she sent me to hospital. I remeber there were a couple of security guards there but i n my mind i saw about 20 of them marching down the corridor. When i tried to talk to a doctor my words came out all scrambeld as in a 'word salad' I was shaking and couln't walk straight and kept thinking there were men after me with knives. I ended up staying in hospital for about three weeks. They put me on Solian which made me feel like a zombie it was so much effort to do anything. After that my medication was changed to Abilfy. I am currently on 50mg abilfy and still experience some level of thought diorder. It's like thinking in another language that I don't understand. But more disabling than the thoughts disorder are the negative symptoms, the lack of motivation and apathy. It's very hard to get out of bed in the mornings but i have to because i work part time for Telstra. It is very hard to sum up my exprerience in such a short amount of words and there are a lot of gaps in what i have told you about but that is is starting point.

 

[Anna]

It is hard for me to think because my thoughts get scrambled, but here is an attempt at summarising what has happend to me over the past few years. I was a bright, enthusiastic, energetic university student in 1999. Halfway through the year I became pregnant with an unplanned pregnancy. This placed me under a great deal of stress as I was in an unstable relationship and had never planned to have a baby. William was born in March 2000 and a few months later I was diagnosed with Major Depression with Psychotic Features. Over the next couple of years I managed to struggle through a couple more university degrees. In January 2004 my ex partner (William's father) in an argument put his hands around my neck and squeezed so I coudn't breathe. I had not much reaction until a couple of weeks later when in a flashback my heart started beating really fast and I was shaking all over. I went to a doctor and asked for information about panic attacks. The doctor was unhelpful and didn't give me any information. I was crying and shaking and the medical centre receptionist could see something was wrong and she sent me to hospital. I remeber there were a couple of security guards there but i n my mind i saw about 20 of them marching down the corridor. When i tried to talk to a doctor my words came out all scrambeld as in a 'word salad' I was shaking and couln't walk straight and kept thinking there were men after me with knives. I ended up staying in hospital for about three weeks. They put me on Solian which made me feel like a zombie it was so much effort to do anything. After that my medication was changed to Abilfy. I am currently on 50mg abilfy and still experience some level of thought diorder. It's like thinking in another language that I don't understand. But more disabling than the thoughts disorder are the negative symptoms, the lack of motivation and apathy. It's very hard to get out of bed in the mornings but i have to because i work part time for Telstra. It is very hard to sum up my exprerience in such a short amount of words and there are a lot of gaps in what i have told you about but that is is starting point.