depression

I don't believe in medication either! Works in the beginning, yeah maybe, but that's not the solution! Plus causes way more serious problems for u eventually! Definitely not worth it! Good for u (:

Anti-depressants don't typically work when used as a sole treatment because they're not treating the cause. The most effective treatment for depression is a conjunctive therapy of exercise, psychotherapy, and pharmacotherapy combined. Aka, go for a walk ever day, talk to a councillor, and go see your doctor and try a med or two. Some work for some people and not for others.

I have generalized anxiety disorder with depression, so I can relate to feeling anxious, nervous, or mistrustful of doctors, but the thing is that is a symptom of the problem! Pills won't solve your problem, they are simply something you can use to help YOU solve your problem.

As for not wanting to talk to someone, well, I can't imagine there isn't a single councillor in your radius that does not have what it takes to help you. I went through 4 of them before I found one I could actually talk to and had the right balance of "Mmm, hmm, yes, tell me more" and "Are you kidding? get off your *kitten* and do something".

Don't let your illness control your life.

I also suffer from depression. I have for many years. Not all health care doctors, therapists are goof balls. Let me ask you this: If it were your liver instead of you brain would you not get treated for that? How about tonsilitis? Just because it is your head(brain) does not mean it can't be treated. Obviously you have not reached your enough to get professional help. Believe me I didn't believe in it either. However, had I not gotten help I would have committed suicide. If your relationship with your SO is not important enough to want to be your best for him, you have chosen to suffer. Keep in mind I am sympathetic but you need to get help somewhere.

I'm type II bipolar. My brother was type I. He's now dead because of it. I'm not. I believe in medication. You have to find the right one for it to work. I've had ones that turned me into a zombie. I've had ones that made me unbelievably angry. I've had ones that have had no effect at all. After seven years, I've finally found something that has started to help.

So, yeah. Don't believe in meds if you don't want to, but I hope it doesn't kill you to go without them. Obviously, this is a very touchy subject for me. Buck up, put your big girl panties on and get help. Whining does you no good. This may seem harsh, but guess what? I no longer have a brother. My sister-in-law no longer has a husband. My niece no longer has a dad. THAT is more screwed up than people taking some pills to feel normal when they have a chemical imbalance or if they're going through a crappy time in life.

I totally understand how you feel. I went through a bad depression about a year ago and it had been building for a while, but I finally decided I had to do something. I went to go see a doctor and I was so embarassed about getting on medicine, but it made a world of difference. I feel so much better now.

About the friends, I feel the same way you do. I will put a lot into a friendship and find out they betrayed me somehow, but then I look around and I see everyone acting like that. I don't understand many people these days. I have found to keep my friendships light and have fun doing stuff, but I only share really personal things with maybe 1 or 2 people other than my husband.

I know some people say religiion or going to church helps, but I don't like church because I feel that people are fake even there. I know I probably let a few rotten apples ruin that for me, but I just don't feel comfortable. So I do my own "church" at home I guess you could say. I read and talk about the Bible and Jesus with my kids, but most of all I try to spend all my time I can with my family.

I hope things get better for you soon.

Is there a minister that you trust enough to talk with? Thats what helped me.

I suffer from some pretty severe depression. I do not take medication, simply because I don't believe in it.

I have bipolar 2, which means for me depressions are deeper and longer lasting than my manic phases.

I have been where you are at.

I tried talk therapy only, meditation, exercise, eating healthier and "toughing it out".

What worked was medication.

I hated the idea of taking it. I hated the side effects (until I found the right combo for me).

I thought I was smarter than than to let myself get so down.

I wasn't.

I've gone off the meds enough times and for long enough to know that my life goes to **** almost immediately.

Meds don't make everything better, but they make it easier to implement the other stuff and get better.

Is there a minister that you trust enough to talk with? Thats what helped me.

i find religion ridiculously oppressive, or i totally would. i actually was with my dad when he was speaking with his pastor when he was seperating from my mom, and the feedback was beyond what i thought. not at all like in the movies. he had no idea what to say, lacked compassion, etc. i know this isn't always the case, but i don't believe in god anyway. but i do think this might work for many people.

Maybe look into a Pagan Priestess or a Metaphysical/Holistic practitioner. Perhaps even some Reiki. Hell, even an exceptional massage therapist would help some.

I feel totally comfortable posting this on here because I don't really have anyone to talk to outside of here.

I suffer from some pretty severe depression. I do not take medication, simply because I don't believe in it. Yesterday I was awake for about 5 hours of the whole day, and did nothing. I recently quit a really ****ty job with the worst micromanager. I have amazing skills and constantly feel underutilized. (p.s. I still work part time at two different jobs, but it is on call and the time between shifts is unbearable). I am engaged to a wonderful man. I have no friends, and it is not like I don't try. I just find people to be totally selfish and I hate putting in so much effort for people that can only talk about themselves, are sexist, racist, and overall to me boring. Although, I still put in effort because I hate being alone and I am a party girl at heart.

All of this impacts my health. I don't know why I get up in the morning so I don't even know why I exercise or eat healthy. I try, I really do.

Does anyone else have an issue like this? I am looking for tips at dealing with this and seeing a doctor is not an option (or a counsellor, I work in the mental health field and know way too many people at almost every agency in the surrounding area).

Thanks for reading, if you did!

First let me say this:

I suffer from extreme clinical depression, and if I do not take my meds everyday I can't function, as in I will either lay in bed all day or auto pilot through the day, my day being roughly 8 hours before my body tells me I have to sleep again, I may or may not shower depending on my energy level, my brain does not emit the proper chemicals to wake me up easily, so alarms and such don't work for me, I can sleep for 24 hours easily and have. My depression is so bad I can't hold down a job without medication, and if I don't take my meds while I'm taking classes I go from a 4.0 to a 2.5 super quick, and then there are the crying fits and fits of guilt that can floor me in bed for a day. That is serious depression. You do not have severe depression.

Now things that might be helpful:

I know you do not believe in medication or seeing a professional, but there are good ones out there, my Grandmother and my Boyfriend both work in the mental health field, granted my grandmother works in Canada but still. Yes, there are a lot of quacks out there but there are also a lot of people who care and can help you. Depression is not something you can do alone if it's severe.

My suggestion to you is to try and find a therapist who believes in talk therapy more than medication since you don't believe in it. I know there are a lot of people who feel this way, but as someone who is non-functioning without it, I can tell you it does work if you need it, without it I don't get out of bed, my apartment or house looks like a train wreck and I -can't- motivate myself to do anything about it. I will be on meds for the rest of my life if I want to be a functioning member of society. So they do work.

But I am going to say this your depression doesn't seem serious, you would probably benefit from saint johns-wort which is a natural herb which can help with mild depression. I know it might seem serious to you but if you can hold down two jobs and you are able to wake up when your alarm goes off then you do not have a serious case of depression, it is mild at best.

Please don't count out professional help, it might not be for you but that doesn't mean it isn't for everyone or that people who get it are woefully misinformed, my boyfriend was a talk therapy only advocate until he lived with me and witnessed first hand how life could be for those with extreme depression while off of medication. And this is someone who was very much against the standard psychiatry practice of shoveling meds down peoples throats, since he is a Psychologist and there is a huge difference between the two fields.

As for callous and misinformed, I can assure you I am very well informed on the subject, probably more so than you are. I don't like taking medication, it's why I go off of it from time to time. You feel fake, you feel like people don't actually like -you- but rather the you the meds make you out to be, but if you are truly depressed the alternative is worse and you hop back on the wagon. I was diagnosed at 18 with clinical depression and have been on meds for the last 8 years and will be for the rest of my life.

I would like to add something to my previous post... I think it's very sad that you came to this forum asking for help and yet you shoot down the help that your peers are trying to give you.

I have been where you are now. I really have. In better times in my life, I thought that people with 'depression' were just feeling sorry for themselves and if they tried hard enough and got out into the world they could start feeling better. And then when I plunged into this downward spiral of my own I hated myself. I just thought that I was weak. That I was feeling sorry for myself and wasn't trying hard enough to get out of it. But I started realizing that this sadness I was feeling was entirely different than sadness I had had before when I really was just feeling sorry for myself -- like when I would get in a f ight with my dad because he was being unfair, or if a boy rejected me, or I got a bad grade on a test. This was more like... a little voice following me around every day telling me I'm not worth it. Coming home from school every day and crying because I was literally failing all of my classes, despite always being one of the smartest students in my class. I became COMPLETELY unlike myself. And doctors and parents told me that I was making excuses for myself, so I said, okay, I'm going to try harder and keep myself to a schedule and MAKE myself be happy and MAKE myself get good grades. I tried that. It made me want to kill myself. It just seemed like such an impossible task. This was when I really truly was in that 'no excuses, no bull****, stop feeling sorry for yourself, get out there and MAKE IT HAPPEN' mode. And I tried. I tried everything I could to better my situation. But the problem was that I wasn't handling anything better. As always, if I called a friend, and she didn't answer, I would go crazy, sure that she was ignoring me. There was no other possibility in my mind. Walking alone from class to class, there was still that little voice in the back of my head that I could NOT shut out for anything, telling me I was fat, ugly, worthless, a failure, stupid, and that I should just give up. Trying to focus on my schoolwork and lifting myself up did not change how I reacted to things in every day life. I was just so different than I used to be.


So in return, I became suicidal. Schoolwork became impossible for ME, one of the smartest people in my class, the one my teachers had always loved... and I broke. All this time I had been thinking that I was just not trying hard enough but when I finally had this breakdown I perhaps thought that I might as well see a psychiatrist -- someone who really DOES know what they're talking about and has dealt with HUNDREDS of people like me -- to get her opinion. So I did. The questions she gave me were not situational things that usually make people sad for awhile. They were really more like "Have you lost interest in things you used to love doing?" "Are you unable to focus on previously simple tasks?" "Do you tend to attack yourself and judge yourself over every little thing?" "Do you sleep too much or too little?" "Have you experienced weight gain or loss recently?" "Do you want to die?" These things described me perfectly. And she started to explain to me the difference between sadness and depression. Sadness is usually something that comes out of a bad point in your life -- it's situational. Depression... although circumstances can bring it on and play a part in how you're feeling... it's like a switch in your brain. It becomes NOT just something in your head but a chemical imbalance in your brain. And you react to things differently. So it's less about your situation and more how you react to it -- and you tend to beat yourself up over things and are much more negative than you used to be, I guess.

So she put me on medication. At this point I was willing to try anything, but still didn't quite believe in 'happy pills'. But what I've discovered after being on these for about a month is that that switch in my brain is starting to go the other way. I don't immediately assume the worst when a friend doesn't pick up. I look back at my school and grades situation and I know it's bad, but I also, instead of looking for a way to get out of it -- death -- I'm looking more toward what I can do this summer and my senior year to fix it. These were things that, in my untreated depression, weren't... clear... to me. These alternatives just weren't options. Everything seemed so much worse. So much worse.

So medication helped me. I guess that's what I'm trying to say. Maybe you should open your mind a bit.

Your screenname says it all, love. You are not loathesome. I am currently coming off of all my meds for depression and bipolar because I am tired of feeling like a vegetable. I wish I had some sage advice for you, but I don't. It is hard; really hard.

I might have a couple of suggestions that could help - find something you like to do. It doesn't have to be exercise, just something to get you out of bed. I keep all my books and my nook and my iPod in the living room so I don't just grab them and go back to bed. I also register my kids for all kinds of stuff that makes me get out of the house. A 5 year old bouncing on your belly and screaming "I am ready for camp!" is real inspiration. Register for a Leisure Learning class if you don't feel up to a college course. It obligates you to get out of the house a couple of times a week.

In any case, take care of you. If you will friend me, I will check in on you. Maybe we can do this together!

I fought taking medication for years as I didn't want to be on it and doubted it would work . I left a very stressful bullying job in the police force because of my depression . I am trying to come off my medication now as I still don't want to be on it . Also reiterating someone else's post on here . I would not wish that dark place upon anybody .
Don't think my post has been helpful or made sense just having a bad day and thought I would share my experience
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