Prozac isn't Helping me Anymore

Hello, Ms. Curtiss,

I am in the process of reading your book for the 2nd time in 4 days. You have given me such hope, though I am "addicted" to prozac, it is not helping my depression anymore and I am desperate for an alternative way. I was wondering if you could possibly give me some insight on my situation? I don't want to use you for free advice, but at this point, I would value your opinion so very, very much that I have to ask.

About 10 years ago, I had my first depressive/panic episode. It was 6 months before I was to be married. Previously I had been happy as a lark, planning my "perfect marriage". Then my mom came to visit and said all kinds of nasty things about my fiance and for some reason, though I knew she was wrong (she's crazy, btw!), I guess I still took it to heart and began to get very anxious, which eventually led to the "breakdown". The depression lifted about 2 weeks later, but I was still listening to my primal mind which was saying "you don't really love him or you wouldn't be anxious. Go find someone who doesn't really love you, you know you can't handle marriage!"

But I loved and respected my husband so much that I always warred with myself. I continued to cycle in and out of depression for the next 4 years, this same battle ensuing inside of me. Then I became pregnant. I went into a deep depression which lasted for the entire pregnancy. It was excruciating. When my son was born, my depression lifted and I felt "happy "for the first time. My husband and child and I moved to LA and I had another baby. For the last six years, I have been sooooo very content with my little foursome.

Recently, my mom came to visit and once again said negative things about my life and husband. The day she left I had a panic attack which led to what has now been a 6 week depression. My higher mind KNOWS that I love my life, husband, and children. WHY is my primal mind torturing me like this???? I get anxious when my husband is around and just feel like I can't love anyone. Yet , I KNOW I love him!!! Its soooo crazy. Its like every time I try to really love him, I go into a depression! When I said earlier that I was content, I really was. But I wasn't being a very good wife. I was lazy and we bickered all the time. But I was happy! Now that I am trying to invest myself fully in the marriage, my anxiety and depression will not let up.

Thank you for your life-changing book. “Green Frog” Rocks. Please answer if you can. Love, H.

Dear H.

It may be that your mother’s physical presence triggers habitual negative thinking patterns in your brain, almost like Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. She says some things to you that trigger old negative thinking and feeling patterns in your memory banks and you simply go with them, believe in them as if they were reality.
If you knew more about how your brain works, you won’t be so suckered into this kind of accidental, downer thinking and will be able to immediately replace the accidental thinking with on-purpose, directed, more productive thinking. Also, you will be able to have a better relationship with your mother if you understand and are, therefore, immune to her negativity. Instead of feeling bad, you will just feel bad for her, and perhaps be able to even be of some help to her.

Also, if you have a lot of repressed fear, it may be that, instead of facing your fears directly wherein you would have an opportunity to do something about them and move forward, you are projecting these old fears upon your marriage. Therefore it will seem to you, rather than that you are carrying around a lot of old fears, that your present life is responsible for your bad feelings.

If a person doesn’t know how their mind works, how they get, neuroscientifically speaking , from one thought to another, and if they don’t know the difference between thinking and feeling, they can unwittingly give their own brain wrong instructions and then wonder why their thinking gets terribly confused and unhelpful. Read the first chapter in my book “Brainswitch out of Depression” that is on my website. This will give you an idea of what you need to learn.

In order to understand precisely how we think, it is helpful to know the difference between thinking and feeling. Feelings and cognitive thinking originate in two entirely different parts of the brain. Most people use the terms “feeling” and “thinking” interchangeably, and it causes immense confusion in their lives. Our lives will not be tranquil, or even understandable to us, as long as we continue to confuse our emotions with our reason.

For instance, “I feel you are wrong” is a thought not a feeling. “I feel like going to the movies” is also a thought. If it takes more than one word to describe it after you say “I feel,” it is probably a thought. Feelings include: tired, angry, hurt, confused, happy, excited, peppy, uncomfortable, depressed, manic, hungry, thirsty, insulted. “I feel insulted” is a feeling but if you add “by you,” then it becomes a stressful thought which provokes the feeling of anger.

The trouble with not recognizing the difference between thinking and feeling is that we often mistake our feelings for reality. This is the reason that when we’re depressed we think our life is terrible when, in fact, we just feel terrible.

Mistaking feeling for thinking leads to dangerous over-concern and over-involvement with normal downer, negative, or anxious feelings. Because we don’t understand exactly what causes these feelings, we give them too much importance instead of being able to ignore them by getting on with our regular daily activities. Paying attention to these feelings is the very thing that causes them to continue, and escalate, and assume tyrannical control over our lives. Paying attention to any thought or feeling is giving instructions to your brain that your brain is now supposed to pay attention to them as well. Ignoring thoughts or feelings is instructions to your brain to ignore them.

Depressed patients often say they spend every moment fighting negative thoughts and feelings, without realizing that it is their very fighting that is the problem. In order to fight negative thoughts you have to keep thinking them, or they would not exist for you to have to fight them. The way to eliminate downer thoughts is not to fight them but to ignore them by thinking some other thought instead of the stressful one. This works for cancer patients. “I’m feeling better and better.” It works equally well for negative and downer thinking also. Thinking is very tricky. Once you learn the tricks you are the one in charge instead of your anxiety, negativity and depression being in charge of you. A. B. Curtiss


Dear A. B.

You are saving my life, woman. I thank you, my husband thanks you, and my two children thank you. You are truly a visionary. And I just can't tell you how much I identify with all of your excruciating stories of how depression ruined so many years for you. You give me such hope. I already ordered “Brainswitch out of Depression” and am anxiously awaiting it.

Thank you thank you thank you

If only every married person could believe, there would be less divorce, no? xo H.

Dear H.

In a way you could almost say "belief is all." And we are all totally responsible for what we decide to believe. A. B. Curtiss

Dear A. B.

So when YOUR bad feelings crop up, you simply say " I know this is my primal mind (my subcortex), and I am not going to pay any attention to it"?

Because I know that it is my primal, fear-based mind that tells me that I am not cut out to be a wife and mother (which, by the way, has been the joy of my life the last six years) and, instead, I think I need to go out into the world and be on my own and really “find myself.” But my higher mind (my neocortex) knows this is just a myth, based on fear of finding true intimacy and happiness right here in my own home. So if I know all this, why does it keep coming back to haunt me? Do your voices still haunt you? Why am I shaking when I wake up in the morning and can hardly eat?? H.

Dear H.

Anybody can have bad thoughts because it is your mind’s whole duty, as a defense mechanism, to look for problems. Your mind doesn’t go around looking for the good stuff in your life in order to protect you. And it is harder to get out of negative thinking because bad feelings (fears) are part of your fight-or-flight response. Your fight-or-flight response instinct activates without any effort on your part. But your rational thinking mind, your neocortex, a further improvement on your old subcortex (your feeling mind) MIGHT be activated by learned association (the way we get from one thought to another) but, not necessarily. To be sure it activates you must “will it.” You must decide to use your rational mind. The way you can "will" the activation of your rational mind is by asking it some question, or giving it some task. Then it will immediately and obediently get to work to solve your problems.

“Hey mind, I don’t want all these fearful thoughts, what else shall I think, instead?” And if you have programmed some thinking exercises, or some “plan B” then your rational mind will activate “plan B.” For me, if I have bad thoughts, I recognize them, and simply turn to more productive thinking. The brain always follows the direction of its current, most dominant thought. You make any thought dominant by thinking it over and over. So don’t make bad thoughts dominant by thinking them over and over.

Do voices still haunt me? Sure. Negative voices haunt everybody. Everybody has horrible, bizarre thoughts. Most people don’t become ax murderers because “the voices told me to do it.” Most people just turn away from the bad thoughts instead of concentrating on them as if they are some kind of reality. For many people it is such second nature to turn away from horrible thoughts, and it happens so quickly, they may not even be all that aware that they actually have bad thoughts in the first place. One reason I don't watch horror movies is that I don't want those images wandering around in my memory banks.

If you are stressed by bad thoughts or violent nightmares during your sleep, you have already released stress chemicals in your brain and then you will wake up suffering the normal human body’s response to stress chemicals--shaking, dizziness, lack of appetite, difficulty in breathing. Do some anti-stress exercises (you can find them on my website) and then get about your day. A. B. Curtiss

Ms. Curtiss,

Do you believe that your method works for those with Borderline Personality disorder? As someone who was neglected as a child and now has an extreme fear of intimacy with my own husband, I am trying desperately to save my life from all of this depression and anxiety. My depression comes back because I start to feel so empty and lost. I guess I thought my relationship would save me....and we all know that can't happen. So now that I know that, why do I still keep going back to the bad thoughts???

Thanks again, H.


Dear H.

You handle bad thoughts by not entertaining them, by not concentrating on them, by ignoring them. When my own bad thought pop up, I know this is just a neural pattern that I don't have to entertain because I can immediately chose another thought to think that will not disturb me. Sometimes it's just "green frog" until I move into some more productive work or thinking.

Bad thought keeps coming back because you have been paying attention to them. The brain always thinks that what you pay attention to is important. When you repeatedly think some thought in your mind, keep replaying some neural pattern, the brain thinks that's what you want and it always follows the direction of your most current dominant thought. So then, through the process of learned association, your brain puts you in touch with every other bad and down thought in your memory bank, and you get mired in the whole mess.

Make some other thought dominant by thinking it repeatedly and the brain will turn away from the disturbing thoughts. You will never rid your memory banks of these disturbing thoughts, but they will recede in importance as you replace them with more productive thoughts, and after a while you will take the bad thoughts less seriously.

You asked about fears of intimacy.

It is possible but very hard to counteract one's first response to intimacy when one has not be properly nurtured or has been abused as a child, You have to make new behavioral response-to-intimacy neural patterns, and use them instead of the old resistant-to-intimacy patterns. Always the resistant-to-intimacy patterns will come up first and you have to ignore and turn away from them to the new, and scary (because they are new) patterns you will be forming. Some pop psychologists say “Fake it until make it.” That is, pretty soon the new behavior will become the norm.
Maybe the hugs will be fake at first, but soon appropriate feelings will follow the behavior.

You have to decide, rationally, that you want intimacy with your husband no matter how painful it is in the beginning. The pain is the old fear projected on your husband, and it doesn't go away fast. It's like a phobia (of intimacy) that you get rid of by encountering it so often that your fear finally dies. Once you have decided rationally that you want the intimacy, and that the resistance is your brain that needs to be retrained, you insist upon the intimacy, accepting the pain of it, until it is no longer painful. This will rid you of a lot of repressed fear and open up possible channels of feeling love for your husband.

But it is like dying to proceed against your mind's entrenched habitual emotional responses and make new and more positive responses. It can be done. It's just very painful and takes many months of concentrated effort. Most people will choose the pain they are used to than the new pain. But the new pain is actually getting rid of old repressed fear. A. B. Curtiss


Dear A. B.

Thank you, Ms. Curtiss. You really are a lifesaver. Everything you say makes so much sense to me. Thank you for taking time to respond. I am loving "Brainswitch", by the way. You are a Godsend. xoxo, H.