Depression, Doctors and Pills

[InnerDarkness]

Hey guys, I talk about this a lot so I apologise if this is just going to be a big ramble but whatever here goes...

So I've always been very up and down with my emotions - when I was younger, I got sent to a few therapists but they ruled everything out and just said you know, this kid's fine, on your way.

That was fine because it just meant that in my life I spent a lot of my time accepting that if I had a problem - that it was something I just needed to deal with, you know - I had nothing to blame it on, you know - I was underweight because I didn't eat enough, I was not getting things done because I'm lazy and whenever I wasn't happy it was because I wasn't doing enough to make my situation or my life better.

That was fine but for the past couple of years I've been kind of getting worse and worse in my head and I kind of finally reached this point where I caught myself going to bed at 8 pm and not getting up until like, 1 - 2 pm the next day. Not because I was tired or exhausted but because I just didn't care about being awake any more and I decided I was bored of being bored.

I'm at a stage now where I just have no interests, no passions, no hobbies, no goals, I stopped boxing and going to the gym - I mean, fuck - I lost interest in playing video games and for me that means something is wrong.

I don't want to do the things that I enjoy and like I said, I take responsibility for my flaws and I don't like having something out of my control so I really had to dig deep and suck it up and decided I needed to go to a doctor - my friends had been telling me this for ages but I just told them I'd get round to it, but I did it.

I went to a doctor and they gave me this form and it was like, all these feelings and it was like, you know - Do you often feel worthless? Do you often feel like a failure? Do you have no interest in anything? It was like, from very not true to extremely true. I was going through all these things being like, yes, yes, yes... oh, this is bad.

The only one I didn't like, tick yes on was a question that was - Do you often have thoughts about killing yourself? To which I answered no. I may be a lot of things right now but suicidal is not one of them any more.

I mean, at the beginning of this year I tried to kill myself but was stopped and have worked through it. But no one think I am at any risk of that - that is not true. The problem isn't that I want to die, it's that I don't care about being alive any more.

But the doctor very quickly came to the assessment: You have severe depression. While I've considered I might be depressed for some time, that was still pretty hard to swallow. Now, they want to put me on these pills and they say I need to go do therapy and that's like - I don't know, I think it's like it is in the movies, I don't know.

That's all very very intense to be told, I know these pills are supposed to fix my head - but I don't like the idea of relying on pills.

I think I've become a person my friends don't really want to be around and I'm not enjoying my life and these pills are supposed to fix that, but still...

I think the way to figure out if your depressed is - If you're unhappy and you're in a bad situation, if you're unhappy with bad things then maybe you're just unhappy and those bad things need to be dealt with.

I've been in and out of work for two years and have recently not had a job for 6 months. I've been trying to get a job everyday and I feel if I can just get a job - it'll solve my unhappiness and I won't need the pills.

If you're unhappy in a good situation and you don't want to do the things you love any more - I mean, if you don't want to do something you don't want to do then don't do that... but if you don't want to do something you do want to do, that's when something is wrong. Then again, I'm not an expert on it.

The doctors have said that my head just isn't making enough of the right stuff to cheer me up and the pills will help. I don't want to be one of those people who relies on pills - but I don't want to feel like a walking corpse any more either.

No amount of talking to my friends or anyone else has helped. I'm a little bit broken in the brain place and I want to get better, but I want to do it without the help of pills...

[Dream]

The pills probably wont fix you, so I think you're in the right to not want to rely on them. I went off of antidepressants when the doc told me I'd have to take them for at least two more years to get them to work.

Your brain might not be making enough of the neurotransmitters you need, but the pills don't make it produce more. What they do is to prevent the reuptake of them (if you're on any sort of reuptake inhibitor like an SSRI or SSNRI), but that only goes so far if you don't have enough in the first place. The pills treat the symptoms, but they don't treat the causes.

I think you need to find out what is really making you depressed and work on it. Is it diet? Is it loneliness? Have a lot of bad things happened? There are a lot of things that can contribute to it even if your life is otherwise good at the moment. Managing those things will help. For longstanding depression not tied to specific events, I've found that diet is the most important thing to improve depression. To get your brain to make more of the chemicals it needs, you need to eat adequate protein. And to get energy, you need fatty acids. Most people eat a large portion of their calories as complex carbs and sugars, and that can really contribute to depression.

I don't think your brain is broken. You just need to figure out what you need, what the real issues are, and fixing those things should help you feel better.

[Kate*]

Hey Ethan, I'm sorry you're struggling so much right now. Believe me when I say that I am the LAST person to push pills on someone, especially after my doctor basically did what your doctor did (only without the form). However, there are some cases and conditions where medication is absolutely necessary. I'm not saying that this is one of them, but I'm saying that there are people out there who absolutely need them.

Dream is right that pills won't cure the problem, they will lessen the symptoms and you WOULD NOT be on them forever. If there is a brain chemistry issue then there's only so much you can do to will yourself out of it. Even a mental health professional can only do so much if there's a biological problem happening.

I would suggest a mental health professional whether you want meds or not, they will be better able to help you than your friends and it would count as something you can do that doesn't mean "relying on pills" and if they suggest them, they will give you a complete evaluation first. And nobody would have to know unless you told them. What you decide to do or not do is your choice, but you don' t have to be miserable.