having trouble with self injury behavior

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Hey all.

My mom is driving me nuts. She has been having panic attacks and crying non stop for a month. She needs to get on meds but she has masto reactions to any anti-depresant except one that will cause weight gain and she battles enough with her weight without anything making it worse. I am beyond the point that I can be any help to her because she is really clingy and srceams and cries rather randomly and loudly. I try to comfort her the best I can, but I am above my head on this one and have been biting myself and pulling my hair when she starts in. I just meltdown when she goes full panic mode. I beg her to get a grip and to stay in the moment and stop thinking about all the what ifs that are totally unpredictable anyway, But from the moment she awake to the moment she goes to bed all she thinks about is the what ifs. I cant be there for her...just too much for me to handle. I am scared I am going to nut up and hurt myself or say something I cant take back. I am not constutionally cut out to be a psychiatic nurse. She had a really bad experince with mental hospitals when my brother put her in one...they almost killed her due to the ignornace of her medical condition, mastocytosis which causes frequent anaphlaxis. She is too medically fragile to institutionalize for any amount of time, but I am beyond any ability to cope with her.
I feel like I am betraying her, but the combination of the emotional overload and sensory overload all in one rather randomly is just too much for me to bear.

what do I do?? I love her dearly, but I cant cope with this anymore.

help!

Jojo

Get her to a psych and ask about lithium, DRIs, atypical antipsychotics (they are not all as bad as zyprexa), anticonvulsants, benzodiazapines, barbituates, or some combination of those, though in her state someone would need to store the downers for her if she is prescribed them. The other possibility is MAOIs, though there would be a ton of things for the doctor to consider to see if she would be eligible to take them. There are a lot of things that can be done to try and relieve depression (even if it's less than perfect) that don't involve serotonin antagonists.

I agree, she probably is at a stage where she needs some sort of medication. What other mental health professionals does she see? Therapist? Psychiatrist? Benzos would probably be the first port of call IMO - xanax, klonopin, ativan, etc. If you're in America, there's a few new atypical antipsychotics that have come out in recent years like Latuda, Fanapt and Saphris which might help [although since it's not available where I am, I don't know their efficiency with dealing with panic attacks]. There's also typical psychotics like haldol which apparently are quite calming.

She is on xanax now, but it has a short activation period and once it wears off, she is back to square one, which is only 4 hours or so of relief for her. Plus she cant drive on xanax, so we have to plan around our schedule when to take the xanax. I wonder if ativan lasts longer.

I tried meditating with her...it works for a very short time peroid, then she is back to the panic attacks.

Jojo

Mindfulness and meditation can be helpful but probably not for the state of panic attacks that your mum is currently experiencing.

How does your mum fare with something like Cymbalta? I've heard a few friends of mine say that it's helpful for their anxiety. I think diazepam [Valium] has a reasonable half-life, but I'm not very good with benzos so I'm not sure about that.