I am currently very depressed. It would certainly be motivating to read posts about how others pulled themselves out of the black pit.
Tell me about how bad you were, and how good you are now.
Ironically, it was the anti-depressant pill that made me depressed. This was many years ago. It wiped me out. I made it though my work day, then I’d go home and sit down on the sofa “for a few minutes”, and wake up 3 hours later. Enough time to have a crappy dinner, walk my dog, and go to bed. I also gained weight - up to 115-125 lbs from my normal 105 lbs. I went to the doctor and was all “This is NOT COOL.” and she said it could be the anti-depressant causing the weight gain. I weaned myself off it and lost the weight, as well as the constant tiredness.
In 2008 my cats, dog, and best friend all passed away and I was a wreck. What saved me was running - I took the Learn to Run course at the Running Room and long-story-short I can run half-marathons now.
It was actually my husband who unknowingly pulled me out of the pit - we “liked” each other for 14 years and finally got together in 2008. I also got my kitten, who is now a huge black cat. Having a pet is a Godsend when you’re depressed - they give you a will to live. In fact, that’s how I survived the many ups & downs over the years - my cat, the one who passed in 2008, was with me for 17 years and was a constant reminder that someone loves and needs me. I had to stay alive and grounded for her.
I have been depressed at points in life starting from highschool. Felt like crying all the time, beaten myself, being unable to be at home.
I have come out stronger(without pills) and you have to believe that you will too.
From experience, following things will make you come out of it:
Say to yourself repeatedly that you are fearless and that God isn’t going to let anything wrong happen to you. Tell yourself that this difficult time too shall pass and that every phase is temporary. Re-enforce these thoughts in your mind.
Keep yourself busy in activities, work out, keeping track of current affairs, newspaper, tv and stuff. Perhaps you wont be able to read books as interest and concentration levels dip when one is feeling down.
Try n stay with someone from family with whom you are really close. It will really help. talk to them. Try to get involved in their actvities.
Try to socialize, even on phone, skype etc if you dont want to meet in person.
remember, this phase too, shall pass.
For me I stored up all my problems for years before deciding I couldn’t go on and decided to kill myself. Or rather I decided to get the “exit button” ready, I don’t know how serious I was about doing it.
But anyway, I ordered the materials and equipment to make potassium cyanide. I wasn’t very bright about it; I ordered everything I needed from one site, and they passed on my details to the police. My dad works at the local police station and so he found out about it that way…
But in the end he was far easier to talk to about it than I would have expected.
And through talking to my parents about it, and a therapist, I virtually “got bored” talking about my own problems. It’s weird putting it that way but that’s how it feels.
All the thoughts of failure, regret and anger which used to swim around my mind constantly just became fairly insubstantial memories. And just like that I was able to sleep again.
It really made that big a difference to me getting it all off my chest.
I would be lying if I said I was “happy” now; the main thing is that my mind is basically clear of those thoughts that used to drag me down. I keep very active to give myself lots of things to concentrate on and plan for.
btw Since I mentioned parents, you may be imagining that I’m a teenager but this happened when I was about 30, about 3 years ago (and I don’t/wasn’t living with my parents).
I already told my story here, but I’ll add a few things (and try to minimize the more transcendent aspects in favor of practicality-in fact focusing on the latter probably helped me more than the former, but ultimately for me personally there was and is no separation, thus I cannot fully minimize the former-which yes includes some Buddhist thought but is not limited to just that.).
The main key is to realize that you are not your feelings, or beliefs, or predilections, and that these beliefs are not permanent. For most people, their attachments to such things does indeed run deep, but for a depressed person they become that which must not be questioned. These false beliefs about the self become so ingrained that to disentangle themselves from them will seem utterly hopeless, so much so that they would rather kill themselves than relinquish them.
The focus of your consciousness must then be taken away from these thoughts and beliefs, away from the constricted ego, and placed and expanded onto some larger context. This can take any of a myriad number of forms (for me it was birds, wild places and phenomena, and little kids), but, to be sure, these don’t become merely hobbies, but instead become your wider world, your unus mundus. Ideally, you will become so engrossed in this activity that you will literally forget yourself and forget that you are actually doing work on youself. Note that I am indicating a total and complete transformation of your consciousness and how you view yourself and the world. If you merely transfer your focus from this one activity in exchange for another, without actually radically shifting the locus of your mind, you will indeed remain stuck in your complexes and neuroses. The way out is the way up.
[Shifting back to practicalities] In conjunction with all that, I also concurrently practiced a ton of cognitive behavioral therapy (tho at the time I had no idea that it was an accepted psychological technique). I simply refused to tolerate any more negative thoughts, at all (this process for me actually reached fruition just last year, so no, I ain’t discussing a bunch of quick and easy fixes, in case you were wondering). With discipline and determination, you can and will eventually banish all the demons to the realm of illusions that they always were anyway. You no longer identify with the individual feelings (even if they are “good”), but with consciousness itself and how it flows effortlessly into every thing you do.
The adventure of life awaits you-what are you waiting for?
In my mid-twenties I started to recognize a chemical imbalance that had all the warning signs of depression. I had seen depression bring my stepfather, a solid-oak-pillar-of-strength farmer, to his knees. I spoke with a professional and was given a book…
http://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-The-Mood-Therapy/dp/0380810336
While cognitive therapy may not work for those who are deep into their depression, I’m a believer that gaining more control over the chemical mixture in the brain is an incredibly effective method of avoiding depression traps and maintaining healthy thought patterns.
I don’t think I’ve ever had major depression, but after my internist put me citalopram (Celex) to help my anxiety problems, the difference after about a year was major.
Prior to following this course of action (including curtailing alcohol use to 0-2 times a week, even though when I drink I drink a shitload – I’ve heard alcohol use can inhibit the effect of such antidepressents), the only times I felt anything resembling happiness was in walking long, long hours in the woods. Now it’s not unusual to just wake up and feel, if not the most pleasant person in the world, basically OK.
Hard to isolate exactly what caused this change – regular exercise and a reasonable healthy diet, including obscene amounts of water and mostly vegetables and grains I’d been doing for a while. Maybe the citalopram just jump-started the old receptors in a positive way. Maybe some positive changes in my life did the trick, concurrent with taking the meds. Who knows, but I feel out of the woods now, and I think seeing a very good doctor and following his advice really was also a major turning point – someone on my side, someone who’s opinion I trust and with whom I have high-quality conversations. I don’t know what his deal is, but he seems to like to chit-chat with me about various little things, like spilling sodium hydroxide on my hands in chem lab and silly stuff like that. Certainly not his peer, but he knows I respect his trade, and he respects my intellectual curiosity as well. That and I don’t come in with a bunch of questions I may have gotten from online “medical” sources.
I spent most of my adulthood unknowingly in dysthymic mode and then experienced a couple of years of major depression.
It’s been a combination of things that have helped me.
A great therapist.
Wellbutrin.
Lots of physical activity.
A very intense hobby.
Mostly just got away from a lot of negative people. I’m starting to realize that I’m not really depressed or unhappy, just that I was constantly being put down and mis-treated by others around me.
keep them up, this thread is very inspirational
I just saw this TED talk yesterday and it seems like a great (though cheesy) way to motivate yourself. Please note that I don’t mean that medication may not be necessary but behavioral therapy is an excellent supplement.
Knowing, when I am at my worst and all the color has been leeched out of my world, that it will pass and those colors will return can be of some comfort to me. The exact same cloud in the sky, which would have appeared gloomy, gray and forboding when my mind is in the grips of depression; stands out in crisp, fresh display in the sky when my mind is clear. I guess I’m trying to say that these “times of lucidity”, for lack of a better term, give me the confidence to know that the bad times I experience aren’t my only option.
There was a time in my life when I honestly believed I was put on this planet just to suffer. I’ve suffered from recurrent major depressive disorder for as long as I can remember. When I was 20 I was hospitalized for suicidal ideation. I took like 13 different combos of meds to try to get some relief, but nothing helped. I stopped attending class and had to withdraw from college… my husband and I were just remembering, the other day, my junior year of college, in which he had to practically beg me to take a walk down the block to the corner store. It was the only time I ever left the house, and if he was lucky he could get me to take a shower first. I hated myself, my life, and everything in it. Those were dark times.
At the time I made the decision to withdraw from school, I insisted on transferring to a CBT therapist. My psychodynamic therapist at the time strongly discouraged it, she said my problems were too complex for CBT (I had severe PTSD), but my husband was a burgeoning psychologist and he insisted I start moving toward evidence-based practices.
It was the best decision I could have possibly made. That was when my life started to turn around. It started off with such an inoccuous thing - I did prolonged exposure therapy for fear of heights. All of these problems, and I focused on fear of heights, because I’d always wanted to travel abroad and my fear of flying kept derailing my dreams. What I never expected is how radically it would change the way I viewed every single problem in my life. I began to focus less on the past and more on my current situation and what I could do to improve things. I began to learn to tolerate my fear and the uncomfortable feelings of depression… and soon after toleration came acceptance.
I went back to school and finished my undergraduate degree, earning straight As my final year. It wasn’t easy. I had a lot of anxiety and depression still, but for the first time I was living my life regardless of all that. I would say that graduating with my B.A. from University of Michigan, With Honors, was one of the single greatest accomplishments of my life. It took so much personal strength to get through all that with all of the psychological difficulties I had.
I spent some time volunteering in Mexico, then I got a job which led to a promotion and eventually I ended up on the East Coast while my husband attended grad school. I graduated with my Master of Social Work last year, a 60+ hour a week comittment in which I not only succeeded, but excelled with a 4.0 GPA. And I did that while undergoing an intensive exposure therapy for PTSD (2 hours a day for 3 months, no joke), which was extremely difficult but worked so well I’m not even 100% sure I have PTSD anymore.
After graduation last year, I had a relapse. I was diagnosed with presumed endometriosis and put on Depo-Provera, which magnified my depression by like a billion. I didn’t know how much it was affecting me until I went off of it nearly a year later. I was unemployed until March of this year, and I came damned close to killing myself. At the same time, though, I was making a lot of progress with Acceptance and Committment Therapy, another evidence-based practice.
But once I went off the Depo and was put on a new continuous BC, I began feeling better immediately. I also discovered Wellbutrin the Wonder Drug.
So it’s been about 3-6 months since the med change and I’m happier right now than I’ve ever been. I finally have a job that I love. I’ve been there 1.5 months and I’m deliriously happy because I’m finally beginning my career, after all that preparation and planning and hard work. On the weekends I have depression sometimes, but I know how to deal with it better. I can recognize when it’s happening and go do something to help it, and thanks to the meds I now have the energy necessary to take action.
One of the single most effective things I did to learn to cope with depression is accept that it was never going to be cured. My psychiatrist and psychologists all feel that whatever is going on with me, it’s treatment resistant and biologically-based and unlikely to ever completely go away. I was so desparate that we spent $10,000 on a new cutting edge treatment for medication resistant depression… and it didn’t work. It was like my whole life purpose was just to get better mentally. And every time I had a depressed or anxious thought, I went into this spiral of feeling like I’d failed.
With ACT, my therapist basically gave it to me straight. This isn’t going away. This is your life. I went through a grieving period when I first confronted that fact, but now I’ve made peace with it. Okay, so everyone has their burdens to bear. Chronic depression is one of mine. I can still live the life I want to live according to my values, and find meaning and purpose, regardless of my mood. I can’t tell you how much freedom and peace there is in finally being able to accept it and focus on other things. My life is no longer about ending my depression. It’s about living a life of meaning. And right now, my life is full of meaning.
My depression seems mostly tied to stress.
I tried taking magnesium citrate (about 500mg a day in supplements). I noticed when I was going through a lot of stress I wouldn’t wake up in the morning and the first though would be a depressing one. It seemed to protect me from the worst of my depression. When I was in a really bad rut, taking 500/mg day helped a bit.
But when I discovered lithium aspartate (10mg/day) that really made a difference. I have tons of stress, but the lithium seems to protect my brain from destroying the neurons until I become depressed. Even when my life feels like it is messing up, I don’t think I’m depressed. I know what depression is, and I don’t really have it at this point in my life. There are studies on low dose lithium for suicide.
Lithium is a neuroprotective.
Some people may write off everything but pharmaceuticals for depression, but I could never tolerate SSRIs.
I’m 41 years old and I’ve been living with depression for most of my life. Medication (Wellbutrin, after several trial and errors with other meds) and therapy (one-on-one) did the trick for me. It took a while to find the right therapist and the right drug, and several attempts over the course of several years, but it eventually worked. I’m still medicated, but no longer go to therapy (though it is still an option if I felt I needed it).
It wasn’t until I saw some physical changes that I realized that the meds were working. Also, a very blunt doctor who told me I had three options: drugs, therapy or keep feeling shitty and not ever getting better. Also, family that stuck by and put up with me year after year was helpful.
I just saw this news story http://thechrisgethardshow.tumblr.com/post/31345619495/for-gethard-anonymous-asks-gethard-i-know-youve about Chris Gethard and wished I would have read it 25 years ago.
Good luck…
Wow! That’s a spectacular read, thanks for the link!
I daresay if I outlive a couple of the people who are engendering my major depression, then I will consider myself fully recovered.
My depression, when it occurs, is pretty mild most of the time. For me, it is problems with self esteem, especially related to my work. When I’m unemployed, that’s when it is the worst. I had a very bad end to 2011 when I left a job at a company that was slowly going out of business, only to work for a crazy boss who laid me off two months later.
My old boss, who was a great guy, at the old company got me my old job back but then the company laid him off because they couldn’t afford us both and he was more expensive. Then my dog had major health problems and I had to put her down, which was the hardest thing I ever did, and that combined with my boss losing his job happened within a 24 hour period. I was a complete mess from January - April of this year. For me, what got me out of it was setting a goal and sticking with it, combined with getting a new job. I decided to get a PMP to enhance my resume, got a new dog, and a new job, all of which has led to a great second half of the year.
Although what salinqmind said is also right on the money…
I can’t necessarily tell you about a full recovery from depression, but I can tell you about being in the process.
I was a moody child, but it was the 70s so no one thought much of it. Later, I cried at school, but my brother acted out, so we had to focus our attention on him. I was so lonely (got teased at school) and started writing to have something I could control.
In college I was still unstable. I would go into the kitchen of the honors lounge, sit on the floor, and cry. Granted, there was usually some sort of relationship drama to provoke it, but most people have the self-control to cry in private.
After college I was okay for awhile. Sure, I worked a depressing job at a grocery store, then a demoralizing job as a customer service representative, but I was finally out on my own, doing stuff! I could buy most of what I wanted, and immersed myself in video games and Hello Kitty.
Then in 2000-2001 I went to my GP for the third sinus infection in six months, and started crying in the exam room. They gave me a questionnaire and decided I was depressed, at which point they put me on medication.
Unfortunately it was too little, too late to save me at the office job. They had moved further west, practically doubling my commute, and showed no sign of moving me into a less customer-service oriented position. When my supervisor finally got confirmation that they had no intention of letting me do something more suited to my actual abilities/demeanor, I made plans to quit.
Two months before I quit, I started making applications. Nothing came through. For 3-4 months, I was in free-fall. I kept applying, kept getting rejected or hearing nothing at all. Finally I got a little bit of a temp job, but mostly I lived off my credit cards. (Setting me up for money-related stress later.)
Then I got a job with an auto finance company, doing credit disputes. Lovely work. Challenging work. No actual customer contact. I was in heaven for the first two years… Until they sent my work (along with the whole credit dispute teams’) to India. Then I began to collapse into serious depression.
For four years, I was out on FMLA maybe half the time. When I was at work, I never knew what I was going to do. I could be in the mailroom. I could be making photocopies. I could be faxing, or doing lien releases. I just didn’t know. That kind of uncertainty did not help.
When I was not at work, I lay in bed as much as possible. I moved a small color TV into my room so I could play video games and watch DVDs. I didn’t get dressed if I could avoid it. I went to all my doctor’s appointments - no matter how bad I felt, I knew I needed documentation.
Then in November 2008 I left that job. It was kind of a mutual decision. I came back from leave and they honestly didn’t have anything for me to do. (That’s what they said anyway.) However they had been downsizing and outsourcing for so long, who really knows?
So I put on a friendly face and was super nice about everything. They in turn were very cordial, gave me a severance and continued my insurance for 3 months. Everyone was sure I would have a new job by then, certainly.
Ha, ha.
Let’s skip over the year-and-a-half of struggling to get a job, going through the Goodwill Job Seekers program, starting to have trouble with my back. My friends finally convinced me to apply for Social Security Disability in May 2010.
Then I got a temp job in May 2011. Amazing location, well-defined duties, I could have stayed there forever. Except my disability came through, and with being bipolar/depressed I needed the benefits. :smack: Letting go of that job was hard, even though I knew I had to do it.
Since then I have been making steady progress. I’ve had a handful of counselors/therapists, and a few psychiatrists/NP’s to do my meds. I’m feeling better emotionally - very few thoughts of hurting myself now. And I’m not snapping at people like I used to. I still have bad days, but I’m learning techniques to pull myself out of them.
But at the same time my back is starting to go to hell. :rolleyes: Which is depressing, since I don’t drive, and need to walk to the bus stop to get pretty much anywhere. I am in physical therapy, and trying to have a good attitude about it, but I don’t know. I fear we may have caught the back thing too late, because we were too distracted with the mental illness.
Anyway, that’s where I’m at right now. I wrote a lot more than I meant to and I apologize. I hope I’ve helped you at least a little. 
Take care of yourself, and keep us posted.
It was when I was in school at it was full blown by time I was in college. I was never successful in college and it fact graduated at the bottom. It was so boring and stifling for me. When my classmates were winning awards and residencies, I was barely hanging on. It was the only time I got therapy too. It helped I that it allowed me to vent.
Whe I went to work it all changed. In fact I was astounded at the turnaround. I think it was cuz how much I hated studying and homework and now I was in the position of never having to hit the books hard again. Years later I found out one of my classmates who graduated with honors had to leave her practice due to unfortunate medical mistake and no longer practices.