I was showing signs of depression in my teens. It manifested itself in over-senitivity and guilt. That was in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s.
When I was twenty, it was diagnosed and I was given electro-convulsive shock treatments. (I can’t keep up with the latest names.) They worked but left me dazed and erased a lot of memory. ** These treatments are not as damaging now.**
Through the years I’ve tried various meds with varying levels of success. Usually, I would feel better and then stop taking the pill. Then I wouldn’t recognize depression when I had it again. I would see it as personal weakness and a character flaw. I saw myself as unloveable and immature – unable to handle emotional pain. Several times I was hospitalized.
In 1989 it was destroying my health and my will to live. I had to stop teaching and take a disability pension. I was introduced by my physician to the right therapist for me. (Sometimes you have to do quite a search.) The anti-depressant that he put me on is prozac. I see him once a month or so for about 20 to 30 minutes. Even these brief counselling sessions have changed my life! The combination of the two – medicine and a little counselling – has been affordable and freeing.
For the first time since childhood, I felt real. It has side-effects, but for me they have been trivial compared to the relief that I have gotten. I will probably take this medication for the rest of my life and be grateful. I have a life. The meds allow me to be me. I am much stronger than I thought. More level-headed. More centered.
The most notable side-effects are hard to distinguish from some of the effects of the illness itself: lack of concentration and short term memory loss. I can live with that.
But I can draw no firm conclusions for everyone else based on my own experience.
Feelings of helplessness, apathy and numbness are symptoms of depression. They are not learned responses in general.
Very understandable and commendable. Just remember that stress-induced depression is just one kind of depression. What happens if you already have chronic depression and then have stress-induced depression on top of that?
Numbness is a way of dealing with grief sometimes and helps you to go through the motions in dealing, for example, with the loss of a loved one. But when depression itself reaches a state of numbness, that is very deep depression. I used to refer to it as “like being wrapped in cotton batting.” At its worst, I would just “go away” emotionally and intellectually. Even to the point of mutism.
Stoneburg, I am glad that you are taking action now before your ability to think clearly about what you need is undermined by your illness. I will be thinking of you and wishing you good courage.
Just to clarify, science is still unable to specifically state a cause and effect relationship between the SSRI’s and the “paradoxical” effects. But the government is urging that both children and adults taking the drugs be watched closely for signs of agitation and suicidal inclinations. (In my own opinion, early signs of agitation soon after taking the medication are the most telling. Suicidal thoughts are a symptom of depression so it is hard to tell if depression is causing it or the medication.) At any rate, negative changes after taking SSRI’s are warning signs.
I would say that if depression were always a serotonin-deficiency disease, SSRI’s would probably have a better track record.
As always, I have a high regard from your knowledge about mental illness and your efforts on behalf of those who have also been victims of the system.
