My grandparents are who I currently live with. They don’t really like my mom’s husband and they view my mom as a disappointment and annoyance. I lived with my grandparents and mother together until age 5, when my mom and I moved an hour away. I still went to see my grandparents every weekend. My mom didn’t date anyone until I was out of high school. Straight out of high school, I went to community college and got my associates degree. I’ve suffered from major depression since I was around 14, and I was put on birth control (Yaz) for hormone imbalance. I’ve been medicated with what seems like an endless amount of anti-depressants ever since then. While I was in community college getting my associates degree, I was in a very dark time and no anti-depressant seemed to be working, until I was put on Wellbutrin. I finally began to feel like I wanted to live again. Unfortunately, it seemed to plateau after I was on the dosage of 150 mg for about a half year. The doctors increased the dosage to 300 mg. I felt better again, and then went through the same plateau. They increased the dosage again to 450 mg, almost unheard of with this specific medicine. I graduated from community college shortly after was doing exceptionally well with my depression. I decided I wanted to go to school for art, which is all I knew I enjoyed doing. I was living away from home in an apartment by myself and I began to actually make friends and become social (something I’ve never been able to do before.) I was in a film developing class in the dark room when I randomly had a grand mal seizure and was rushed to the emergency room. They blamed it on a UTI I didn’t know that I had and said that “any infection could cause a seizure.” I was sent home with antibiotics and told that “it was probably a one time thing.” It wasn’t, of course. Twenty days later I had another (slightly shorter) grand mal while I was with two friends who took me to the hospital. At that point, the university basically told me I should leave. I saw a neurologist who told me that I had to have someone with me 24/7 from then on, since I could have one at any time. I also lost my drivers license. My mom and stepfather both work so I wouldn’t be able to have them there all of the time, so I had to move in with my grandparents. That was about a year ago and I’ve been in and out of doctors offices and have been in the hospital in the Epilepsy Monitoring Unit also. I became so depressed about the things that were happening that I stayed in my room every day. I felt horribly tired, sad and ached all over. Since I can’t drive I can’t leave the house without getting my grandparents to take me places. I have two good friends and one works every day and the other won’t come get me when she isn’t working because she’s so wrapped up in her boyfriend (who is a horrible person.) I go to my mom and stepfathers house, but when I even mention it, my grandparents roll their eyes and act as though I’m a horrible person for wanting to spend time with my own mother, who I’ve always been close to. I recently got so fed up with the horrible side effects of my medicines that I decided I wanted to get off of them. I want so badly to experience life without these horrible side effects (hallucinations, numbness, extreme sadness, memory loss, chills, fatigue and many more.) I asked various doctors to help me, and was told again and again that I shouldn’t. I decided to wean myself off. Ive gone from 450 mg of Wellbutrin to 150 mg, and am scheduled to stop completely tomorrow. I stopped my Luvox completely about a month ago because I forgot doses and knew it wouldn’t be too horrible if I stopped. It was also a low dosage. I feel more like myself than I have in years. I finally have emotions and want to talk to people. I am still unable to leave the house unless I get someone to take me somewhere. Its depressing and frustrating. I’ve never had a job because I’ve always been in school full time and my family has always said that they’d rather I focus completely on school so I’ve always been dependent on them financially. I think that they want it that way.They know that if I wanted to I wouldnt be able to just do anything I wanted to. I want to get a job now because I’m feeling so trapped here. All that I want is to be able to do things instead of live this dreary, sad life where I can’t go to the grocery store or just out for a drive if I wanted to. Without a license I can’t drive to work so now I just take classes online. I’m stuck now and I want to be able to be independent because I feel guilty every day. My grandparents, though they mean well, are very controlling and I can’t do anything to gain any independence now. I can’t think of any way to get out of this. I have to be seizure-free for 6 months to get my license back. I had the last one before I weaned off of my medicine (which is known to cause seizures.) I don’t know how to begin to help myself in this situation, but I know that to be healthy I need to, somehow. My grandparents have even said recently that they think I should not move near school campus when I can drive again and should stay with them. I love them so much and am grateful, but I have to do something to help myself.
