CP/CPPS, Suicide and Depression

[webslave]

I received this today:

(If you choose to use this please keep it annonymous)
...apologies for spelling errors - I'm a child of the spell check generation...

I was diagnosed with chronic prostitis a couple of years ago, whilst living in Japan. The Japanese medical system has no provision for counciling, and as such I was informed that I had prostitis, and then told to come back in three months for a check up. With only limited information, largely researched myself from the internet, I went throught the classic symptons - denial, anger then depression...a tail-spin depression that lasted about 18 months. I spent a lot of time thinking about sucicide - and came pretty close on a number of occasions. With time I've learned to deal with prostitis - changing my lifestyle, and expectations from life. Looking back at how close I came to suicide, and how depression negatively affected my work, relationship and health, I feel amazed that more attention wasn't given to this side effect of the illness. Chronic prostitis doesn't kill, but depression can....so to speak.

On your (excellent) site, it states that 50% of men with prostitis suffer from chronic depression. On all sites that I used to research about the illness, only cursory mentions were given to the occurance of depression, and ways to deal with it. I feel that this is a serious ommision! From my own personal experience I can only imagine that diagnosis of this illness results in a significant number of suicides each year - many of which may be just attributed to depression, without an analasis of what caused the depression.

If I could offer advice about how to improve the site for sufferers of prostitis, then I would reccomend a comprehensive section on depression and how to cope with it - it could save a lot of lives.

thanks for your time, and thanks for an excellent website. Keep up the good work. If I can help in any way with the site through donation, contribution or publicity please let me know.
andy

[iHurt]

I concur, I've suffered from depression and anxiety all my life. chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome has taken my depression to a whole new level at times. Although I've never really been suicidal until CPPS. I take 150mg of Welbutrin twice a day to stay on an even keel and I still have suicidal thoughts almost daily. Physicians need to be more sensitive to our 3-fold suffering, physical, emotional and spiritual. I'd also like to see an area on depression to bolster this most excellant web site. It's the only web site I've found with any validity.

[LightningTree]

I had panic attacks every night for the first two months of my illness. I was worn out, and stopped eating entirely. No doctor ever asked me if I was still eating. When I asked for pain medicine, I had to bring my wife in to convince the doctor I wasn't an oxycontin freak.

VERY LITTLE SUPPORT from the doctors I saw. I would see an 80 year old man waltz into the urologist's office complaining of BPH, hop into a chair setteling down to read the paper, and I would just feel hopelessly defective being unable to sit. I would stand in the waiting room for hours, and the nurses would study my face to see if I was a psych case. The urologist would shake his head and say "I've never seen anything like it", with a look that clearly meant that he wanted me to leave his sight.

Without my supportive family, and a twin brother who had already gone through the same problem, I would have been lost. They convinced me to see a psychologist who helped me deal with the fear of continuous genital pain for all eternity. As a non-judeo-christian, this was a fear I had never faced before.

As my symptoms improved, my depression subsided. But I didn't really recover from the depression for a good 6 months.

[DavidinLA]

I too have have dealt with depression and anxiety for a long time (and I wonder for what percentage of suffers, D&A is a precursor). The chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome has made it 5 times as bad. I know that I need to learn to control my emotions, but it is very hard and I need great support to do it. You don't realize how insecure something like this can make you until you get it.

[h92]

I'd like to share my experience on that too.

I won't tell you my whole life, but it hasn't always been nice. I had deeply diseased parents, a suicidal father who died in a car accident when I was a very young adult (or an old boy), I nearly became paralysed in another car accident etc ...
By luck, I have quite a good mental character, and I've never let myself fall into depression, I've always been able get over all these problems.

But a few months ago, when suckers err I mean doctors told me nothing could be done, that it was in my head, and that I should live with it, I looked at me and though what life that would be. No sex, constant pains, no way out etc ... For the first time in my life, I felt like I was loosing control, I remember one evening where I felt like I wouldn't be able to stay straight up and fight. I felt like my world was falling and that I couldn't live that life. I had never been this close, by multiple orders of magnitude, to give up and fall depressed. I even asked myself if I should try to continue to live.

Happily, my nature of always getting up again, the help of my friends and my mother, the discovery of Internet sites with new informations had let me take the fight again, and I've started researching like a madman every bit of information of the disease. This is the reason I've come to this site, and this forum. I've also start a (french) website, telling my symptoms and my progress in researching ways out of our disease. This had many other sufferers email me and our discussions had helped us gain hope back.

What I am sure is that if it wasn't for my (lucky) nature of strong mental will, the very caring help of close ones, my ability to search informations, my good reading of English (this is another problem, there aren't good sites on our problem in French, and I'm sure that's the case for many languages), me "meeting" online other sufferers with who we could share our troubles, I would have fallen in depression, and I would certainly have thought about suicide, and perhaps tried to commit it.

I think the medical profession has a very big responsability in the mental and moral difficulties we all had, since they do not believe us, they do not listen to our pain, they do not act with compassion, they do act like assholes that just want us out of their office since they can't do anything for us, they do not try to at the very least help our mental health, they do not try to inform us of possible "cures", they do not try to guide us to discuss it with other chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome afflicted men etc ...
Of course, there are exceptions, and I'm sure there are doctors who at least try to comfort us, but I have read many many people complaining of their uros acting like shit with them. Who with chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome hasn't been with such a prick ?

We need to act by ourself and heal. We also need to get the information to other chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome suffering men. And since I hadn't done it yet, I'd like to thank the people who maintain this site. I am sure that you guys saved a lot of men from depression and/or suicides.

Thank you very much for your work. Having chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome and having doctors tell you "though luck, we can't do anything for you, and, besides, we don't really believe your pain" means you come home with your pain, your lost of hope in healing, wrongly assuming your life will be hell no matter what can lead the strongest man to depression. This is a real problem.

And a last word to all you guys depressed : we _will_ be better. Look at all the success story. There IS hope. I don't know how, I'm too newbie for that, but we will get over it. Don't give up, and when pain is unbearable, go and read the success stories. That will help you. If they could, we can too.

[LightningTree]

Anxiety and depression are often co-inhabitors. Worsening depression can make resisting anxiety increasingly difficult. Therefore, treating depression is critical to limiting the anxiety that directly increases one's physical pain and suffering.

I am often symptom free during the middday. When my wife and I went to a charity event the other day, it was me and my wife (we are small in stature) surrounded by big guys in suits. I guess big guys in suits scare me. My perieneum started to hurt and I had to fight to relax my pelvis. After the event, the moment we were out the door, the pain went away.

While in the initial stages, your pain will be constant and not respond like this, later on it will. And yet, while you are in constant pain, your tension is making your pelvis less hospitible for healing. If there is anything I have learned on this site (DONATE to keep it alive!) reducing habitual tension in the pelvis is partially a (1) behavioral/conditional response that requires years of re-training and insight to even detect the tension and (2) made more difficult if you are constantly fighting emotional issues that cause the tension in the first place (see the above.)

I was one of those people who couldn't pee at a urinal if someone was at the urinal next door. Now I am not. I don't have to go to the sink and pretend to be looking in the mirror while I wait for a urinal any more (so there are lots of other useful advantages to psych counciling and relaxation training.

[wegonemakeit]

i have had chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome for 2 years now and I have had my ups and downs mostly downs. but what is the most depressing is when you have a day were u feel great and u get your hope up that mabey it will finnaly go away it always returnes.... also I am having a hard time dealing with getting close to a girl because of the dicomfort after sex and the desensitivity... I already lost someone I loved to death over this disorder she was with me from the beging but my depression got to be to much for her and she left me. I think 1 night stands is the way to go that way I dont have to worry about getting close to anyone cause this new girl I'm with is picking up on my bad vibes after sex and is questiong me and I said I have back pain. yes the depression is killing me but it ant the worst thing in the world I could be paralized or have cancer or in prison but I'm not. I have minor pain in my grown and mild irritation in my urethra. along with lower back pain. and if I can kick the discomfort after sex my deppression will get better also.

[robertpagen]

Let me start at today. As I type this I am a happy, stable confident man and my 3 and a half year old son is playing next to me. The point is that you can come back from the worst which pelvic pain can cause.

I suffered "prostatitis" and staggering urinary frequency and a resulting regular premature ejaculation for much of twenty years up to 2002. Did I ever think of killing myself and ending my life. Absolutely! As pain underminedf my career, my ability to earn a living, my ability to have a normal relationship, my ability to even sit and do nothing. It was often rational to think that nothing would be preferable to the daily struggle just to be normal. As I piled failure upon failure which was directly attributable to this disorder suicide seemed the rational choice. When I looked into the eyes of my ex wife, who I loved more than anyone I ever have or will, and saw her struggle to make sense of this ailment as doctors told her it was in my head, I too doubted myself. Depression is not a strong enough word. I felt I would be doing her a favour by removing myself from this world. The reality was that I was days away from killing myself when I learned of the Pelvic Myoneuropathy concept in November 2002. I am reminded of the U2 lyrics from the song "Walk On". "I know it aches and your heart it breaks, Walk on, and Leave it behind."

So I say to you, please, walk on. There is much wonderful potential in you which will be revealed when you are freed from this jail of pain, and we now have the keys.

Robert

[prisoner]

great post Robert, encouraging for all of us.

I've only had this for close to a year now. I've noticed my attitude tends to reflect how I'm feeling. I've had as many as two consecutive symptom free days where I'm on top of the world and I feel this chapter of my life is coming to an end. Then symptoms return, and my happiness is squashed like a bug on a windshield. I go through cycles where I accept this is who I am, then I get pissed and wonder WHY THE F@!* CAN'T I BE NORMAL? I often fantasize about life prior to this and how great it would be to return to that state. I think what keeps most of us going is the hope that one day we will be cured. In the meantime, we can alter our lifestyles to cope and still enjoy certain aspects.