[DBlain]

[QUOTE=Wylie's Mom;4363592]
So sorry to hear all of this. As someone who has very treatment resistant depression, I understand what these women go through. I so wish your friend's daughter was still here, and still fighting the fight - it's such an inexplicably excruciatingly painful fight, so I truly feel for both of them.
It sounds like your mother in law has tried so many things. Has she tried any/all combos of meds, including the newer ones, I wonder? I hope she hasn't given up on continuing to try different combos. Really good psychs will try more novel approaches like cytomel, the MAOIs, abilify, ritalin or adderall, and more of the mood stabilizer drugs like lithium or lamictal.
QUOTE]

We all wish Carla was still here but her mom said they are taking comfort in that she is no longer in pain and that in some way they feel like a weight has been lifted because they were so affected by her struggles and suffered along with her and for her as she tried to find something that would help her. The memorial was held at the hospital since being a nurse was a big part of her life. There were many co workers that spoke and you could tell how much they thought of her, they talked about her infectious laugh, her off beat sense of humor, her practical jokes, how much her patients liked her and her willingness to help out all the other nurses even on the most difficult cases. A few of our friends were saying later, how could someone like that be depressed enough to take their life. I think one of the things that made it harder for her is she worked the night shift and she would be taking her meds at different times and then taking stuff like Benadryl to get sleep after a long difficult shift. Her doctor advised her to change shifts but I guess having low seniority at the hospital made that difficult.

As you can tell from my above post about my mother in law we have always been kept at arms length so don't know all the details. If this was going on with my mom it would be different since I would have a lot of control. But my husband's family are very distant with each other. Even though my MIL was not in the throes of depression while my husband was growing I get the impression she was always a bit removed and not overly close and loving with her kids. My husband does not have that much compassion for her either, first because I don't think he ever felt that much love for her, but also because when he first started his career he struggled with panic attacks which he muscled through with meds and therapy and a kind of tuff love on himself, so since that worked for him, he can not understand why his mother and sister can not do the same.

It's odd because like I have said before on cancer seeming to surround me so does mental health issues. My sister's husband is bi polar and twice the year before last tried to take his life, one time he was so close to death he spent a full week in ICU. He used to state that he did not want meds because he could accomplish more in a week in his manic state than most people could accomplish in a month, but then when the depression would set in he could hardly get out of bed and that state would last longer. Now he is pretty good about taking his meds but I know they don't make him feel that great, if he takes them to early in the evening he falls asleep, if he waits to late he can't get up in the morning to get to work at a reasonable time, he also seems to not have much energy. Thankfully he runs his own accounting practice and can work to an extent at his own pace.

I of course don't know the answer to any of this but it does seem like while there is a large variety of medicine on the market some people just can't seem to find the right combination to feel good or the side effects
keep them from wanting to take it.