Rage, Anger, Depression...i Am Celiac

[kaki-clam]

For years of my life I was ANGRY..... I was impossible to be around..to the extent that I couldn't even stand to be around myself. I was MANIC....I would get home from work at a little past 5 and start cleaning, too many times to count, the next thing I would remember is scrubbing grout in my bathroom at 2am, all the time between 5pm and 2am completely erased from my mind, only a clean apartment to let me know what I had done. I got diagnosed with cervical cancer...DEPRESSION....finally I sought assistance from a wonderful psychiatrist. She diagnosed me with DEPRESSION due to the cancer diagnosis and turning 30 in the same month. She said I exhibited traits of BI-POLAR disorder, but she wasn't completely convinced that I was, and she diagnosed me with MANIC-DEPRESSIVE disorder. She started treatment with a number of medications and that is when the fun begin.

The first few we tried really did nothing. She upped the dose, I started going 5 days at a time with no sleep. One or two nights after I would sleep for 2-3 hours then the cycle would repeat itself. She gave me sleeping medications. First one we tried..I was getting up taking showers at night with no knowledge of this..only my wet hair and dirty towel on the floor (a girl who scrubs grout with a toothbrush at 2am doesn't leave dirty towels on the floor when she is conscious) to let me know what I had done. The next one worked great! I slept days and almost got fired from work for being a no call / no show for two days..only a letter from my doctor saved me from that fate. The next one didn't work and she upped the dose and every morning when I awoke and got out of bed...I fell down! I literally fell on the floor. It didn't matter whether I just jumped right out of bed or sat on the edge for a few minutes before rising to my feet, I FELL DOWN EVERY MORNING!

Enough! I said to myself after 3 months of this madness. I cleaned all the half used bottles of medications out of my cabinet filling a plastic grocery bag with 50 different half used "treatments". I ended my sessions with the psychiatrist, wouldn't answer the phone when she called...life turned to "normal" for the next few years.

Unexplainably, I went from a size 16 to a 20 in a matter of 6 months. I blamed it on over eating due to the depression and the fact, that for the meantime, i wasn't manically cleaning my apartment (no exercise).

Failed relationship after failed relationship. Failure to advance at work due to my "attitude". Failure to be social with my friends..failure to feel anything but psychotic..praying for death, but to chicken to actually do anything about it.

4 years later, 2 more failed relationships, I start a low fat, high fiber diet. (Awesome way to go for an undiagnosed Celiac---NOT!) I am now a size 14 and I have a new boyfriend..things are looking up right? WRONG boyfriend moves in, psychosis begins again. Yelling at him when he doesn't use a coaster, not allowing him to help clean, make the bed or wash the dishes because he "didn't do it right". He didn't like low fat, high fiber, so I started packing the pounds back on and am back up to a size 20 and sometimes a 22.

1 year later, Celiac diagnosis, boyfriend gone, cramping pain and inability to eat pretty much anything while by body expelled this newly known to me poison called gluten. I lost 48 pounds, back down to a 14 and sometimes a 12. 8 months have passed as I write this. I am alone...I am afraid to meet people...people I meet are enthusiastic to learn of my illness, but quickly tire of it. I hoard food, I can barely close my freezer and my cupboard looks like a gluten free product warehouse. I spend weekends cooking obsessively. The only person I will allow to prepare my food other than myself if my mom and only if I pretty much stand over here while she does it. I do go out to eat at two local restaurants on occasion, since I am trusting of them (not my own mother, but strangers who are chef's in a restaurant..really??? )

I feel like my life is in shambles. I feel like the Celiac is the root of it all. If only I had been diagnosed early in life??? If only I hadn't been diagnosed at all? I am miserable at work, I use my illness and my FMLA as an excuse to miss work. I am in a hole and I don't know how to get out. I am afraid to get out, it's kinda nice in here..well, not nice exactly, but safe...yes, I guess that safe is a better word. My friends and the lovely people on this forum offer suggestions, tell me even in the small town I live in there must be something to do, some way to make new friends...the nearest support group is 2 hours away and I would have to miss work to go to it. I have alienated everyone...except you all who read this, and offer support....

That's all I got. Thanks for reading.

[Lisa]

I just at your profile. YOU ARE A BEAUTIFUL YOUNG LADY! And you should have everything to look forward too!

Gluten can disrupt your life tremendously. But I would encourage you to find a good doctor and have a metabolic panel tested. And I have listed some contacts for local support people, who can find supportive professionals.

Open Original Shared Link

Boston, not too far from you has excellent doctors familiar with Celiac and other disorders similar, such as Lyme Disease. I would encourage you to seek further answers. THERE IS and answer for you...and don't stop until you find it.

Open Original Shared Link

Hugs to you....and don't stop searching.

[kareng]

Wow, Hon! Not sure what to say! You have had a rough road.

I understand the food prep thing. When my hub tries to cook I hover. As I have been hovering, I'm getting more comfortable that he is following my rules. I trust 2 restaurants because others with Celiac locally trust them. When the local association has meetings there, I figure they know what they ate doing.

As for making friends, when you get more comfortable with yourself, you'll attract people to you. You might have to leave the house to attract them.

I hate exercise but it does improve my mood. Doesn't have to be major, maybe just a walk around the block to start.

Good luck , Kaki. Feel free to vent here.

[Skylark]

I don't want to "push" the EMPowerPlus I take on these boards, but since you mention bipolar and still seem to be suffering some from psych troubles, I will post about it.

I didn't get mentally well when I went gluten-free. Like you, I was a diagnosed bipolar with a cabinet full of meds. One of my symptoms from the undiagnosed celiac was depression and they gave me Prozac, which eventually made me bipolar. I used to have these awful mixed-manic episodes, a wretched mix of insomnia, mania, and depression. I went ten days with virtually no sleep once until I was put on Seroquel for a couple weeks. Gluten-free gave me some energy and settled down a lifetime of GI problems but my mind didn't settle down from diet alone.

Another episode hit and I got fed up with the useless meds. I tapered off everything and started onto EMPowerPlus. It's a chelated vitamin/mineral supplement designed for mental health. It's controversial, and you can look up the rather spectacular court cases with Health Canada if you like. (Beware a crazy jerk named Terry Polovoy when you're reading.) There is a little research on it, mostly by Dr. Bonnie Kaplan out of Calgary. Her work is encouraging but mostly open label as the double-blind study was plagued by recruiting problems.

Anyway, it worked for me. I got sick at first, as my body freaked out from all the unfamiliar nutrition. TrueHope is used to this, as everyone seems to get a little sick at first and they guided me through the rough patches. Starting onto EMPowerPlus is not for wimps and they have a call center to help people out. After about three months of feeling worse than ever, my bipolar went into complete remission and my entire personality changed. I vividly remember walking downtown and seeing the clear blue sky and all the colors of the shops, smelling the food from restaurants, and feeling genuine joy for the first time in ages. I am not irritable now, I have no insomnia, my mind came back from all the brain fog, and for the first time in my life I am happy alone. My family says I'm a different person. The couple times I've tried to go off the EMPowerPlus, I've gotten either manic or depressed so I know I still need it. I also need to take concentrated fish oil to really feel well.

EMPowerPlus is not only hard to start on, but expensive, as the starting dose is a whopping 15 pills a day. Some people can taper to less over time. For me, it actually cost less than the psych visits and meds, plus it made me well instead of being a band-aid. If you can afford to try it, it might well change your life. The website is Open Original Shared Link.

I hope this helps. It might not work for you, or maybe you want to look into other supplements like Metagenics, but you can beat mental illness that doesn't quite resolve gluten-free.

[RumbleTummy]

My heart goes out to you! I is HORRIBLE to be depressed. I fought depression for 12 years and FINALLY managed to get out of it. It took me finding a young adult group at my unitarian church where I could try all the things I like to do in a safe environment - like playing the saxophone where no one will laugh at you - they'll just pick up their keyboard and play along.

Getting out of depression is a battle of chemistry & biology, yes. The other part of it is that you also need somewhere YOU can shine at the things you do best. What's the point of living if life isn't fun? Keep at it. I know you can claw your way out of the pit and into a rewarding life.

Your energy level is very important. Getting your food right will help.

I have just stopped eating gluten, but I think it is still sneaking into my food - @#$^&*! like my %$#@ COFFEE this morning. I am grateful that the folks on this site can address these issues and advise us that some foods we thought were gluten free can actually contain it. Otherwise, I would doubt myself about whether it is gluten giving me problems at all. I want to solve this already!

Take care. Keep us posted. We want you better! L

[VioletBlue]

Sucks having to cram six different size clothes into the closet doesn't it

I was about ten years older than you I think when I was diagnosed. When I look back at some of the choices I made in my life I can't help but wonder if I would have made them if I didn't have untreated undiagnosed Celiac Disease. I kicked that around for years before I finally realized the the past is gone and the future is all I can change. Yeah, sorry, that sounds terribly cliche but it sometimes helps to remind myself of that.

I used to excuse the cleaning thing as being what I did when I was upset. Some people scream and cry; I'd clean. But I will say in my own defense that I never came to at 2am with a toothbrush in hand. But for awhile there I had one damn clean apartment.

One of the things I came to realize after I went off gluten is that other things were bothering me too. Other foods besides gluten make me manic. Things that are traditionally mood altering substances like chocolate and ibuprophen and night time cold medicines have bad effects on me; effects they're not intended to have. If I take Nyquil I'm up all night and my mind is racing. If I take more than one ibuprohpen I go into a manic rage. The same is true if I eat too much chocolate. I sometimes wonder if those of us with neurological reactions to gluten aren't just more sensitive all the way around to mood altering substances. I don't know.

I was also told when I got on this ride that it would take about 18 months to truely see the difference. I poo pooed it, but, ah well, they were right. The first year of being gluten-free was a black hole of a nightmare that I have since sucessfully erased from my memory banks. Don't bother asking about it because I cannot remember it.

You mentioned that you're taking time off work becuase you don't feel well. Couldn't you kind of sort of time one of those unwell days to coincide with one of those meetings that's a 2 hour drive away? I know it's a long way, but it might be worth trying just once? I am the queen of "You want me to do what". I bought a new car in 2005 and it has less than 19,000 miles on it. You do the math. I live in the middle of Goddess foresaken nowhere on top of a mountain, but I've been known to plan a trip down the mountain to hit Whole Foods, Clarks and Henry's and stop for some Pollo Loco chicken on the way back up. Yeah, it's a whole day out of my life but it's a ME day.

I also treat myself to a couple hours at the lake just enjoying the water. Is there some other way you could be good to yourself, something you'd enjoy besides eating? Not that I poo poo eating as entertainment, but sometimes with you're Celiac eating can be stresful. I personally keep Hagan Daaz in the freezer and buy really good coffee; two of the things I can still enjoy. A lot of things get taken from some of us when we're diagnosed. It does help if you can find something or give yourself permission to have something that makes you feel like you're being given something back instead of just having stuff taken away, if that makes any sense.

For years of my life I was ANGRY..... I was impossible to be around..to the extent that I couldn't even stand to be around myself. I was MANIC....I would get home from work at a little past 5 and start cleaning, too many times to count, the next thing I would remember is scrubbing grout in my bathroom at 2am, all the time between 5pm and 2am completely erased from my mind, only a clean apartment to let me know what I had done. I got diagnosed with cervical cancer...DEPRESSION....finally I sought assistance from a wonderful psychiatrist. She diagnosed me with DEPRESSION due to the cancer diagnosis and turning 30 in the same month. She said I exhibited traits of BI-POLAR disorder, but she wasn't completely convinced that I was, and she diagnosed me with MANIC-DEPRESSIVE disorder. She started treatment with a number of medications and that is when the fun begin.

The first few we tried really did nothing. She upped the dose, I started going 5 days at a time with no sleep. One or two nights after I would sleep for 2-3 hours then the cycle would repeat itself. She gave me sleeping medications. First one we tried..I was getting up taking showers at night with no knowledge of this..only my wet hair and dirty towel on the floor (a girl who scrubs grout with a toothbrush at 2am doesn't leave dirty towels on the floor when she is conscious) to let me know what I had done. The next one worked great! I slept days and almost got fired from work for being a no call / no show for two days..only a letter from my doctor saved me from that fate. The next one didn't work and she upped the dose and every morning when I awoke and got out of bed...I fell down! I literally fell on the floor. It didn't matter whether I just jumped right out of bed or sat on the edge for a few minutes before rising to my feet, I FELL DOWN EVERY MORNING!

Enough! I said to myself after 3 months of this madness. I cleaned all the half used bottles of medications out of my cabinet filling a plastic grocery bag with 50 different half used "treatments". I ended my sessions with the psychiatrist, wouldn't answer the phone when she called...life turned to "normal" for the next few years.

Unexplainably, I went from a size 16 to a 20 in a matter of 6 months. I blamed it on over eating due to the depression and the fact, that for the meantime, i wasn't manically cleaning my apartment (no exercise).

Failed relationship after failed relationship. Failure to advance at work due to my "attitude". Failure to be social with my friends..failure to feel anything but psychotic..praying for death, but to chicken to actually do anything about it.

4 years later, 2 more failed relationships, I start a low fat, high fiber diet. (Awesome way to go for an undiagnosed Celiac---NOT!) I am now a size 14 and I have a new boyfriend..things are looking up right? WRONG boyfriend moves in, psychosis begins again. Yelling at him when he doesn't use a coaster, not allowing him to help clean, make the bed or wash the dishes because he "didn't do it right". He didn't like low fat, high fiber, so I started packing the pounds back on and am back up to a size 20 and sometimes a 22.

1 year later, Celiac diagnosis, boyfriend gone, cramping pain and inability to eat pretty much anything while by body expelled this newly known to me poison called gluten. I lost 48 pounds, back down to a 14 and sometimes a 12. 8 months have passed as I write this. I am alone...I am afraid to meet people...people I meet are enthusiastic to learn of my illness, but quickly tire of it. I hoard food, I can barely close my freezer and my cupboard looks like a gluten free product warehouse. I spend weekends cooking obsessively. The only person I will allow to prepare my food other than myself if my mom and only if I pretty much stand over here while she does it. I do go out to eat at two local restaurants on occasion, since I am trusting of them (not my own mother, but strangers who are chef's in a restaurant..really??? )

I feel like my life is in shambles. I feel like the Celiac is the root of it all. If only I had been diagnosed early in life??? If only I hadn't been diagnosed at all? I am miserable at work, I use my illness and my FMLA as an excuse to miss work. I am in a hole and I don't know how to get out. I am afraid to get out, it's kinda nice in here..well, not nice exactly, but safe...yes, I guess that safe is a better word. My friends and the lovely people on this forum offer suggestions, tell me even in the small town I live in there must be something to do, some way to make new friends...the nearest support group is 2 hours away and I would have to miss work to go to it. I have alienated everyone...except you all who read this, and offer support....

That's all I got. Thanks for reading.