Dawn, you may have noticed I've been reading past posts on this forum. I came across one where you said you were feeling poorly, and felt useless to your kids. I hope things are better for you nowadays. How old are your kids?

I have a daughter who is 4 1/2. I have had depression since she was 1 1/2. Almost all of her life. I feel she doesn't even really know who her mummy is. Just this person who is tired all the time, often irritable and short on patience, just no fun. Every now and then when I've had one of those brief windows of normality, I'd play and laugh with her with ease. Then usually in a day or less I'd be back to being tired and grumpy. Also I'm emotionally numb, but that could be drug damage as well as, or instead of, mercury problems.

These are years we'll never get back. It really upsets me sometimes. If I'm having an off day, which is frequent, then I'm usually not up to doing much. My daughter ends up watching way too much TV because I can't keep her entertained. It's supposed to be my job, it's why I stopped working 5 years ago when I got pregnant. Now I'm just counting the days until she's at full-time school, so I can lie on the couch and not feel guilty about it.

My hope is by that point the depression will be lifting, due to chelation and (hopefully) either a job, or a part-time course.

What you said just struck a chord. This experience has been hard on me, but it's been hard on my family too. I so much want them to be able to be with "me" again.

hi, i'm not a parent, but have lost a child, when i was 19, as in they died, don't be hard on yourself. do simple things, kids love it, even if you can't feel it, if there is a smile on their face, u may feel u r missing out but they won't. you are their whole world. just as long as they KNOW how your feeling isn't their fault, which could happen automatically, they will be happy, i think!!!!!!!!!!!! its totally up to you but i would somehow maybe even directly tell them a lot how you are feeling if it's bad isn't because of them. i never wanted kids until i got mercury poisioned, so now i do (age 27) and wonder if anyone will ever want me, cuz i don't communicate well, but it has made it so i at least am sure its what i want, so.. something good came of it.

all love to you and your family, and the child especially you speak of

ps. i read some of your other posts, and EFEXOR for me was the worst of them, i went insane on it, completely lost 3 years are a blur, and totally lost it coming off of it, years and years ago, it took me 18 months to get my feelings back and the zapping feeling in my brain to stop. evil stuff

I can totally relate to how your feeling Veggijuicer, I have 3 children, one 23, with a grandchild of 1, a son of 18 and a daughter of twelve. I was fit and healthy until 3 years ago and I was a very energetic and bit of a whacky mum. I worked with special needs and disruptive children in some of the schools my two eldest went to. Theyve grown up seeing me working hard, bringing them up mostly by myself and after work we use to have such fun and good times. We use to have their friends sleep over all the time and loads of family parties and stuff. Basically life was fantastic. Then bang I got poisoned severely and life changed beyond all recognition. I grieve for my 12 year old and wish I could do all the things with her that I did with her elder sister. It is so sad for us as parents, I have been open and explained things but it dosent change the fact that you want desparately to be as you were and have all those clothes shopping trips and stuff again. Maybe someday. Hugs Tracy

Hi, Linda, my kids are 13 and 15. I got ill 2 yrs ago, i literally was no good to them, i just wanted to be out the way. I felt like i was ruining their lives. I was so bad i was bed ridden most days, when i changed my diet i could get up and do a few things around the home. When i got my amalgams out my mental symptoms got worse, it was only when i started a new thyroid treatment and HC that i began to feel a bit more like myself. This was my main problem, not enough T3, i was only given T4 for 13 yrs and depression crept up on me until i started Armour.I still get off days, where il start crying, or feel panicked, also i get night sweats still quite alot,but before this i had no emotion some days which scared the hell out of me, i felt like i had dried up.
I still get loads of symptoms,mainly mental.
It was the guilt that made me 100xs worse, the guilt that i couldnt look after my kids, thank God they were old enough to look after themselves, my heart goes out to you as you have a young child,it must be devastating, this disease is so cruel!
Let us know how you go with the DMSA,hang in there,
DAWN XX

Benza, I'm sorry for your loss. Thanks for the upbeat advice. After I read it I reminded Shelly (my daughter) that I am poorly, which is why I have been tired and grumpy. And that I love her. It all seems to be water off a duck's back to her, she's used to it and in her own way she seems to understand. I just hope that I'm not still having to say those things years into the future. If it weren't for her, I don't think I'd be here now. I would have topped myself. I couldn't do that to her.

I'm glad you got over your Effexor experience. Sounds horrible. I virtually cold-turkeyed off my AD. Talked to someone on another forum who had done it and he said he was fine. Goes to show you, again, how we are all individuals, and respond to things differently. Are you eating nutritiously, taking good supplements? Russ' recommendations for those things, especially on diet, serve well for recovering from taking ADs as well as recovering from mercury poisoning.

Tracy, thanks for sharing your experience too. It's painful isn't it, but it helps to talk to others who are in the same situation. Hopefully now that your children are older, they can truly understand what is happening with you, that it isn't their fault, and that you are trying to get well. 12-year-olds are pretty smart and grown up. And you will have had some good years with her. There are some special mother-and-baby moments that stay with you a lifetime.

I do wonder sometimes if my depression affects Shelly on a deeper, less conscious level though. Has anyone here noticed how children, especially when they are young, tend to reflect our moods? When I am happy, Shelly is happy. When I'm having a bad day, she is too, and more whining and crying and defiance are virtually guaranteed. She's a lovely little girl but tends to be short-tempered, argumentative, and prone to spells of vegging in front of the TV. I can't help but think that I'm responsible for some of that. I have actually tried at least 3 times to limit the TV to 3 short programmes a day, and it worked with her, but not me -- I went practically insane every time and caved in. I can't cope with intensive childcare 24/7. Maybe when I am well it will be easier. I also hope that I will then be able to play with her and do things with her and not have them feel like a chore, and it will encourage positive things in her as well.

Dawn, as you say, it's good that your kids were older when you got ill. I'm sure they made sense out of what you told them. I think you're setting a wonderful example for them. Many people in your position would be taking drugs. Instead you are doing the hard work necessary to really get well. When I have bad days, people like you inspire me. How have we got through such crap, day after day, for so long? My instinct is still to reach for sugar, sometimes I really crave it, but I don't want to sabotage my detox efforts. (BTW I took vanadyl sulphate for a numbers of months, and am still on chromium GTF. I've seen Russ recommend it for blood sugar issues. I don't think it's helped me much but it was certainly worth a go.)

I'm waiting on that DMSA. Hasn't been shipped yet. Apparently we had a postal strike for a couple of days here? I read the BBC news site several times a day but hadn't come across it. Anyway, I've got a long list of stuff I'm waiting to be delivered. It's going to feel like Christmas when it all comes, LOL. As usual, most of it is supplements, or health, or chelating stuff.

Thanks everyone for your kind words. I'm sure there are many others in this situation. We can't change what has happened, but we can do our best to get well so that the future is brighter.

Linda.

I know it's not the same, but I have a niece, almost 8yo old now, and she's approaching this difficult period now, with all the new peer pressure coming from school that she's only been for a year now at, and I'd so like to be her guide through all this, esp since she doesn't really have a father figure, I so much want to pass sthg on, be a part of her life and maturation, make use of my presence in her life.

byt with this sh*it ? You're a complete self-occupied zombie, with no personal experience baggage cause you lost it all along with your memory , hence have nothing to give.

she often comes up to me and tells me she loves me, and it tears me apart cause I don't feel the loive towards her, though I want to, and I so want to give it to her, give the warmth, have a GENUINE interest about what she says she's done and her matters, but noope. And I dont know if I ever get the chance to do all of this.

You will get there Jinx. I was "venting" here but I also believe that I will get better. We are invested in our healing and want to do it the right way, rather than go to the doc and get drugs. Not many people already see this much of the truth.

I've had little windows now and then where I don't feel so bad, and my emotions come back. They don't usually last longer than a day. Do you get those? Every time they've happened I've made a mental note of what I was thinking and feeling, so that the rest of the time when I am numb and in a brain fog, I can hang onto that and know that's how it really is deep down. Just because you don't feel the love for your niece, doesn't mean it isn't there. I don't feel the love for my family right now, haven't done in a long time, so I try to be loving in what I say and do. I know, it is upsetting though. It's like your humanity has been stripped away.

I see that you've been struggling and that people here have given you quite a few suggestions in the past. And on one of the threads here recently, someone wrote emphasising again the importance of diet and supplements. I can't stress this enough myself. Before I started dealing with possible mercury issues, I was working on trying to heal from damage done to me by an antidepressant. I joined an internet list run by a holistic health practitioner who has been helping people get off their drugs for over 20 years, and she does it via the diet and supplements route. I've seen people with bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, you name it, some of whom have been on cocktails of drugs for a decade or more, stop their meds and be well. This healing approach works for many conditions because it is what the body needs to be well.

What is your diet like, and are you taking any supplements? Have you been chelating or have you stopped that for now?

Don't lose hope <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> For some of us it just takes more work to find what works, but we can do it.

Linda.

I've been following the diet and taking supplements to a T. It keeps me from becoming compeltely insane at best, but it didn't stop me from having psychosis 2 days ago. So that's how things look like with me.

No I haven't started chelation cause I still have two small amalgams left. I'm scheduled to have them removed - no biological dentists in Poland - but the last time I had 2 fillings removed I was still functional, though brainfgged , and the exposure has led me here. I'm in a pretty dire position right now. Any new exposure will drive me completely crazy and further damage my probably already damaged brain., probably before I get the chsnce to chelate it back with dmsa. If it weren't for the two fillings, I might be somewhere right now with chelation, but I'm pretty much a hostage to it.

I don't even remember whom I was a year, or even half ago. You are right, it's all bout lost humanity, that's the biggest evil in all of this, you are taken away what other people in 99% of all other diseases have for granted.