What to do when incapable of thinking or making decisions right now

[Amber98]

Im been withdrawing off seroquel/amitriptlyne for the past 3 months with everyday being a living hell.

Ive been on every anti depresseant in the book and have had severe insomnia since I was 5. Ive gone through so many psychiatrists and psychologists in my young life that ive lost count. I know i cant get better so i dont need advice that may help less severely messed up people.

My doctor put me on amitriptyline as a medication to help me sleep after all anti depressants failed to help my anxiety which caused my insomnia. It was a gift and a curse. My bowels have been obstructed so many times from the constipation that i have one bowel moment every 3 weeks. After 5 years amitriptyle stopped helping me sleep but the severe constipation didnt go away. Tired of all the side effects 3 months ago i quit cold turkey. Ive had suicidal depression everyday for the past 3 months. I never had depression this severe b4 the amitriptlyne. For the insomnia ive tried trazadone zopiclone seroquel clonazapam...havent gotten any sleep for the past 3 months. I cant think and my mind is constantly thinking i want to shoot myself. I can handle the body pains, the hot flashes, everything about the withdrawl except my mind going crazy.

Anyways i dont have a long term plan. My constipation is actually going away after years due to stopping the drug. I go to my psychiatrist and he shrugs his shoulders...he will prescribe me whatever i ask for because he knows ive tried everything. Hes suggesting olanzapine next.

Ive realized one thing. My issue has always been anxiety..causing insomnia causing more anxiety. The only thing the amitriptyne helped was the insomnia due to the anti histamine. Same with seroquel. Thats whats causing the constipation too...the anti histamine. It was never depression that i needed help with..until now. The amitrilylne never helped my anxiety..but being able to sleep helped a bit.

Anyways i havent killed myself yet but here are my choices:

Go back on amitriptylne...hopefully it starts working again after pooping out since ive been off for 3 months. Having severe constipation is better then wanting to die every second

Go on an antihistamine...thats all it was doing for me anyway.

Go on olanzapine..same family as seroquel. Another drug which has antihistamine. Seroquel also helped for a while then stopped

Clonidine?

Any other options...im at the point where i need to stabalize so plz dont mention yoga. I tried meditating today and realized i cant until i am at a level of normal crazy.

[Paxiled]

First of all, you have a lot of can'ts in your message, and if you believe you can't, you can't.  Meditation, for example, isn't something you can or can't do -- whatever the experience is, that's the experience.  When we get to expecting something from the meditation, and I've developed that problem after years of wonderful meditations, then it seems the meditation isn't doing anything.  More likely, it just means you need to try a different form of meditation and need to stop having expectations, but that's easy to say and very hard to do, especially for those of us in Western societies.  But if you're judging your meditation, you're doing it wrong and you need to see a spiritual teacher, not a psychologist to teach you meditation.  You don't have to adopt the particular spiritual path, but you'll learn what meditation actually is, which isn't a relaxation technique as much as a way of watching how you think.  As I say, I now have the same problem you have, and I hate it -- I relied a lot on meditation.  In my case, and I think in yours, the problem may be quitting drugs, not taking them.  Withdrawal, especially as often as you've done it, can be impossible for the brain to get over if you've been on antidepressants a long time.  Don't know how many people are affected by this, but estimates are about 10-15% without any solid data because nobody will pay for it.  In your case, you have insomnia, and one of the biggest problems people have with long withdrawals, or protracted withdrawals as they're called, is insomnia, so you've compounded your problem by quitting your drug abruptly and putting yourself into a profound withdrawal.  I also don't quite understand the anti-histamine thing -- the drug you quit wasn't an anti-histamine, it's a tricyclic antidepressant, a class that preceded the discovery of ssris.  They are notorious for causing constipation -- I was on imipramine for a few years until it stopped working and I had it.  You compensate for it by using fiber and eating a diet that is easier on your digestive system if you want to stay on the drug.  Seroquel has a very controversial history, as do some of the other drugs you've been on.  It was illegally marketed for a lot of things, including sleep, but it only helps you sleep as an unwanted side effect of the medication.  Doctors often put people on drugs that are sedating as sleep aids, but the sedation is not a wanted effect of the drug -- it's a side effect.  Meanwhile, the drug is doing as well whatever it was created to do, and often this isn't something your system needs or wants.  Using benzos for sleep is also a problem, as they are addictive, very hard to stop taking, and interfere with REM sleep.  Ideally, we all want to learn to sleep naturally, not with the aid of a drug taken regularly, because eventually the drug will bite us back.  I don't have a clue how to help you do that other than the usual tropes -- exercise yourself into exhaustion, stay busy, try natural remedies that don't cause rebound insomnia such as melatonin or homeopathy.  Try hypnosis, try anything.  But here's what I can tell you from my own experience -- anxiety never gave me regular insomnia, but a permanent withdrawal from Paxil caused by a quack psychiatrist destroyed my system and I haven't had a complete night's sleep in 12 years.  I hate it.  I don't know how to recover from it.  Which is why I would encourage you, given how hard your withdrawal is going, to consider going back on the drug and tapering off as you should have to at least get rid of this one problem so it will stop.