I’ve checked out a number of sites online and the symptoms seem to match up.
What do I do next? Is there any advice anyone can give me?
um…if you have a medical problem wouldn’t it be best to consult a doctor? Any advice given over the internet is not really sound!
But have a hug anyway. 
If you have a family doctor, see him for a referral. Depression can be treated and conquered. You don’t have to live like that. Sometimes it will get better on its own, and sometimes lifestyle and even diet changes can help, but medical advice is necessary. Get that advice from your doctor, not from a message board. Others can tell stories of their personal experiences but everyone is different. What works for one person may not be best for you.
Make an appointment in the morning, and good luck.
{{{Kythereia}}}
Make an appointment with your doctor. He or she might prescribe medication for you, or give you a referral to a psychiatrist.
Know that THIS IS 100% NOT YOUR FAULT. You don’t have depression because you did something wrong, or your character is somehow flawed, or you have a bad lifestyle or diet, or you have the wrong religion (or lack thereof), or someone in your family did something wrong, or anything like that. You might hear that kind of attitude from some people- they’re wrong and totally ignorant on this subject, and you shouldn’t listen to them.
You might also hear people telling you just to “snap out of it” or to “suck it up”. Clinical depression is qualitatively different from just feeling down in that you can’t just “snap out of it” without help, be that medication, therapy, or both. You could just “suck it up”, but why on earth would you want to if there are treatments available?
Well, you have already done the first thing, which is asked where to go next. See your doctor. Don’t be embarassed. You won’t be the first person he/she has heard this from.
Don’t shun appropriate medication if it’s prescribed, but don’t be surprised if your doctor also recommends therapy or counseling. Depression can be exacerbated by other things going on in your life. Dealing with those issues can make it easier to manage the physiological component of depression.
If your doctor does suggest medication, remember that not all drugs work equally well for everyone. Treat it like any other medication - if it doesn’t seem to be working or seems to be making you worse, talk to your doctor. There are many options and you may need to try several.
Depression is a physical illness that affects body and brain as well as “mental” (whatever that is). I always found counseling for depression like getting sent to a support group if you have the flu. It may help but it isn’t really the primary treatment.
Exercise, especially aerobic exercise, can help a lot and, if you combine it with medication, it will get better.
Don’t think you have to be a complete loon to go to a psychiatrist. A very large number of their patients are otherwise normal people like you. One thing they don’t always make clear is that there are a large number of drugs that are available to treat depression these days (that indicates a pretty big demand no?). Psychiatrists basically have to guess which one to start you on and they don’t have a good way to know if that is the best choice until a few weeks later. It can take time to find the right medication and you should be honest with the doctor about how it working. It is normal to try several before they get it right. Other times however, you will start to get better right away on the first one. People are different in that way.
I am going to respectfully disagree with Shagnasty’s opinion about therapy. I’m biased, since I am a psychologist who provides therapy, but I think for many people, starting with therapy is more appropriate. Many people with depression don’t need meds, and if they do, a psychologist can refer them or help them with their doctor. For example, I think meds are approriate for a client, I discuss it and if they want me to, I either call their doctor or write a note. Most doctors are comfortable writing scripts for psych meds, especially with information from me about what is going on with the client. Most people can avoid going the psychiatrist route altogether, which is usually preferable, if the stories I hear from clients are to be believed.
I agree with Brynda - for depression and anxiety, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is as effective as medication (I can provide cites for that if needed). You may need some medication until you learn some coping skills and change some behaviours like negative thinking, but if your doctor gives you only medication with no advice/encouragement to see a counsellor as well, he is not giving you adequate medical advice. Some things you can do right now to help yourself feel better is get sunlight and exercise every day, and think positive things - positive thinking stimulates the same area of the brain that anti-depressants affect.
Some recommended books (I am assuming you have some anxiety as well, since anxiety and depression are very often linked, and these resources address both):
Self-Coaching: How to Heal Anxiety and Depression – Dr. Joseph J. Luciani, Ph.D.
The Power of Self-Coaching – Dr. Joseph J. Luciani, Ph.D.
From Panic to Power - Lucinda Bassett
The Feeling Good Handbook – Dr. David D. Burns, M.D.
Anxiety and Phobia Workbook – Edmund J. Bourne
Coping with Anxiety: Ten Simple Ways to Relieve Anxiety, Fear, and Worry -
Edmund J. Bourne, Lorna Garano
Power over Panic - Bronwyn Fox
Hope and Help for Your Nerves - Dr. Claire Weeks
Worry – Edward M. Hallowell
Most of these books are available through your public library or through a bookstore like Chapters or Amazon.
Most of these authors also have websites that you can visit:
www.stresscenter.com - Lucinda’s site
www.panicattacks.com.au - Bronwyn’s site
www.self-coaching.net - Dr. Luciani’s site
Dr. Luciani’s site also has a message board where you can ask Dr. Joe Luciani himself any question you can think of relating to anxiety and depression.
For some positive input - www.greatday.com/motivate - This site has a new motivator each day (except Sunday) – they are very brief articles on how to move forward, stay positive, and look after yourself.
Just remember, checking symptoms online does not mean you have depression.
Look into simple things to help you out of a funk. Treat yourself to a good movie, Start a little Exercise and see if you can pick it up. Do some little project whose results will make you happy. Basically gets those Endorphins popping. Then if you remain in a funk seek professional help.
Jim
That’s OK. I am bipolar (not that I am suggesting the OP is). I literally almost died before I was put on the right meds. The problems started in my early 20’s and got very severe over time. It was very much a physical problem no amount of talking would have gotten me back to normal.
I still go to talk therapy once a week but I consider that to be an adjunct treatment. I have been pretty normal with just meds and I was out of my mind with just talk. I am almost completely in remission with both so I am not downing talk but I know that meds do the heavy lifting for me.
YMMV
Ah. Well, as you know, bipolar and depression are different animals. Folks with bipolar do need meds, no question. The OP, however, mentioned depression.
When the trouble is behavior and emotions that you cannot stop, then drugs can break up the habitual, and allow you to begin again. Drugs can’t begin for you. When the trouble is things you want to start doing, or feeling, then therapy is a good resource, but it cannot be relied on without support in you daily life.
Getting help is a process that doesn’t just take a referral, and a prescription. It takes a decision that you are worth a few years, or a few decades hard emotional work, and the support of people you have close to you. I don’t know much about your family, and close friends, but they matter now.
The end of my advice is that people get better. That happens all the time. People do deal with depression, and move beyond it.
Tris
Of course, you need to see a doc. But OTC, I have good luck with St John’s Wort. It takes me about 6 weeks to see an improvement, but it seems to help me.
Also, excersize seems to help.
But definitely see a doc.
Sending supporting thoughts your way.
The most helpful thing for me has been to approach my depression as I would type II diabetes.
It’s a medical problem.
It’s not a sign of weakness or something to be embarrassed about.
Doctors treat it all the time, and won’t be shocked or look down on you.
It has purely physical elements, and lifestyle elements.
Some people can control it with lifestyle change only, others require drug therapy as well.
Even if you need drugs, the lifestyle stuff will also help a lot.
The other thing to remember is that you *can * feel so much better. It might take quite a bit of work, including talk therapy and maybe trying a few different drugs, but treatment does work, and it’s worth it!
For a long time I resisted being on drugs, especially long-term. For some time, CBT, exercise, etc. were keeping me going just fine. And then one day I just suddenly spiralled down into abject misery for no reason. Even more telling, 75 mg of Zoloft a day did prevent such spirals, except during the week before my period - every cycle, like clockwork. 100 mg keeps me normal despite hormonal fluctuations. (Oh, and I have no side effects, not even sexual - except maybe making my sex life better cuz I’m happy.) So I’ve done a 180 and now my motto is “Drugs are good, mmmmkay?”
Good luck. I’m happy that you’re going to get help!
Talk to a doctor about your symptoms. They’ll probably want to place you on some low level meds right away. Try to press for alternative treatments (cognitive therapy, etc). I hate drugs. If the therapy fails, then as Brynda said, most psychologists are more than willing to refer you on.
I have been dealing with depression for almost 5 years, with only the last 14 months on meds. Nothing else has worked. In fact, I am on my third or fourth concoction. Maybe it is just a reprieve this evening but I can almost sense a ray of hope coming through the darkness that occupies my mind. If you want to talk, my email is in the profile.
Anaamika, I know you will read this. Sorry. It’s been a hard 6 months. Check you mail in two weeks. Thanks.
Speaking as someone who was both treated and cured what worked for me what the following
[ul]
[li]Realizing that I wasn’t defective or “weak”[/li][li]Going to my primary doc and getting referred to a psychologist[/li][/ul]
Together they treated me, I was on meds and had appointments. Mine was a little different as it was caused by PTSD, but the end result is the same.
One important point Shagnasty mentioned that I want to call attention to:
This is not a one-size fits all scenario, sometimes it takes a few tries to find the right meds. DO NOT just go off them on your own.
Calling the set of symptoms a syndrome doesn’t equal understanding what causes them
You knew how you felt before you read the websites that said that how you felt was called “depression”.
You may be under the impression that there’s a known disease — you know, where they understand the mechanism and the cause and how it develops over time, and perhaps most importantly know what to do about it — called “depression”.
There isn’t.
They’ve stuck a name on a recurring set of symptoms reported by many many people. They are studying it. They’ve got some pharmaceuticals that seem to help some of the people some of the time, but they don’t really know why, and they don’t really know what “depression” is, or what causes it, or how it develops. In fact, their diagnostic criteria are sufficiently loose and sloppy that if it were any other branch of medicine they’d get upbraided for inadequate definition of terms, but psychiatry kind of gets a waiver. Is “depression” even a medical condition to begin with, rather than a social or spiritual or psychological-growth or some other kind of experience? No one knows. It’s possible.
Some people do benefit from psychiatric antidepressant meds. Some people do not. Several pharmaceutical firms were busted, not long ago, for faking the research that makes it look like they have effective drugs that don’t have bad side effects. (Cites on request). Again, there’s a certain tendenty to waive them through with a shrug, because it’s a snarly bag of questions without easy answers and the attitude is that at least the shrinks and the pharmaceutical companies represent something and it’s better to do something than to say “Uh, gee, we dunno”.
I am a psychiatric ex-inmate. My diagnosis was not depression, I had other diagnoses. But I have been in large conference rooms filled with other politically active psych expatients and survivors of the mental health system, many of whom were diagnosed as “clinically depressed”, and there’s a wide world of frustration and pain experienced by a great many folk who turned to psychiatry for help or an answer and suffered enormously from what was inflicted upon them. And some can’t come to attend because they have committed suicide from the occasional “paradoxical” effects of some of the antidepressants being prescribed.
Most feminists think it’s social-political, at least in part. (Most “depression” victims are female).
Keep your eyes open and do your research. Try things if you are so inclined, but keep your options open and be wary of attempts to take away from you the right to make the meaningful decisions. (Even people who have had good results from psych meds will generally say that you need to window-shop and find a therapist with whom you have a good affinity and who respects your opinion on your own situation etc)
Having been there & bought the t-shirt, I agree with AHunter3, that the “it’s an illness” responses are often too simplistic, and from over here tend to sound a bit too much like American pharmaceutical adverts. I’ve seen a number of psychiatrists - the one that helped was the one that removed the ‘depression’ diagnosis, replacing it with ‘symptoms of depression’, because finding the root cause (if there even was one) was not the biggest concern.
Is there anybody you can talk to about it? Often, if you’re upfront about it (the subject line of this thread is the approach I mean!), people will be surprisingly receptive, and it’ll often be the case that you’re not the only person they know of who’s had problems. The first two people I talked to were a close friend, who then told me about an ex-girlfriend of his who’d had serious difficulties, and my mother who then told me about her post-natal depression.
And another vote for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, which has helped me more than anything else.
About 4 years ago, I was depressed and alcoholic - I was at University with my exams coming up and having done no preparation. It was a cyclical problem - I was depressed because I had done no work and spent all my time shying from work and drinking. And I drank and shied away from work because I was depressed and couldn’t face up to the facts.
What I needed was a lifestyle change - I needed to start doing some work, to stop drinking, to break out of the cycle. However, as with many people suffering from (the symptoms of) depression, I was scared to do anything different, to make any decisions, in case things ended up worse.
Without the medication prescribed by the doctor (and it took some courage to go and ask), I would never have conquered that fear - I couldn’t do the lifestyle change without the chemical support. Sure, I felt like a bit of a loser at first - I mean, only losers need drugs, right? Wrong. There’s no shame in asking for help. I took just a small dose (60mg) for less than a year, and was able to make the lifestyle changes required to ensure I didn’t get back into that situation when I came off the drugs.
I took so long coming to the realisation that I needed help that it was too late for my degree - I came something like 162nd out of 164 people in the year (I can’t imagine what those other 2 wrote on their papers!) and couldn’t go on to get my Masters. Because I did eventually seek help, though, my life didn’t follow my degree down the toilet. I’m happy, successful and sober, and I love it.
If the inspiring Fromage a Trois story isn’t enough to spur you forward (;)), take a look around - see how many of your fellow Dopers (the cream of society) have been through this before, or are still going through it now. You’re not alone, and you’re not a freak. It’s like getting on the housing ladder - the first step is the hardest. Speak to your doctor, listen to what he/she recommends, and don’t be afraid to try it. If you feel it’s not working, see the doctor again and try the next thing on the list. Oh, and best wishes - don’t be afraid to ask us for support.
I think that the continued repeats of “it’s an illness/disease” is more of an attempt to let Kythereia know that there is a biological element to depression.
One of the most irritating/discouraging things when you are going through this are the people that keep telling you “Just snap out of it” or “Well just cheer up”.
As I said, this is not a one-size fits all proposition. Kythereia, you will need to be proactive about finding out what works for you. If something is not working, speak up and get it changed. This is especially tough to do when you are depressed.
Good luck!