If You've Recovered from Depression...

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All my life I've been surrounded by people that were really bad for me, and that may be one of the reasons for my life-long depression. Now that I'm with somebody who is actually good for me, who knows and empathizes with my depression and does things like get me out of the house, I'm feeling much better. Having him is better than any antidepressant and has no side effects. He doesn't expect me to be anything different. For me, this has been a miracle. I think it's okay to have another person, if he's good for you, be a reason you feel better.

I took robitussin, and got a hang over consisting of contentment, happiness, and optimism for like 2 weeks afterwards. After feeling the euphoria of a speed like drug, i realized how dependant on mood living life, progressively and happily, or stagnantly and unhappily is. I have experianced being totally depressed about something, taking robitussin and being totally okay and even a little excited about it.

I stopped using robitussin because i feared permenant damage of some sort (it isn't well documented, so i'm working on the safe side). But through using it and studying my own emotions and mood i have learned how to control my mood to a degree, and to behave in a way to nurture my mood. Using this control of my mood i have made myself more capable and productive than any one i know. Others when they get stuck in a depressive cycle are going to be in there for a week or longer. I can end a depressive cycle in 5 minutes.

And i have known depression. I was depressed on and off until 12th grade(long story). And it hasn't simply gone away. Every time i am defeated, which does happen, enough times in a short period i will enter what i used to know as a depressed state. But i have seen the happy side of the fence, and using knowledge of its existance among other things i can restore my mood.

I reflect upon being in depression as being ankle deep in black sludge and there being nothing but darkness as far as the eye can see in every direction. No reason to even move. It won't get you anywhere.

On the outside i see depression as more like a solid sphere of darkness that i'm in the center of. To the person inside, it is darkness as far as the eye can see. And infact there is barely an inch between them and the edge of the sphere and therefore freedom. You are so sure that action is pointless and fruitless that that inch is just as impassable as miles of darkness, but if you took 3 steps you'd be on the outside of it.

I illustrate this not to suggest that depression is easy to break. Infact i am aware how despairingly hard depression is to break. But the difference between despair and hope is so small. Once you truely know this, you realize how powerful you really are.

Serissa I was also suicidal as a child . I was severely severely depressed ages 11-21. Around 21 Ijust "snapped out of it." I dont know why. I still am melancholy but it will be a specific thing that gets me down. I've had a rough autumn for instance but I can identify specific things that caused it. And at the moment I'm very sleep deprived so I feel pretty low. But I know as soon as I get some sleep I'll feel much better.

I also fear slipping back into the abyss. I would almost rather anything else than depression. I'm just glad it's satyed away.

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Last edited by Cade on 06 Mar 2006, 2:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I, too, was depressed for at least the last eight years. Shrinks and Zoloft came and went, but none of it really did much of anything. My progress out of that smelly pit was gradual, and, I would hope to believe, an act of free will.

Maybe Serissa and I are experiencing a shared hallucination . . .

I was hospitalised with depression on the 10th of November. I am currently on weekend leave.
I virtually begged them for ECT, as I have tried 6 different antidepressants.
The only drawback for me with ECT, is the memory loss. That can get me down, as I like having a good memory. When I had the first treatment, I had to be shown back to my room, as I couldn't remember where it was.
I remember GA, that is most important to me.
I believe the ECT has helped me a little, I will let you all know what I feel like at the end of treatment...

By ECT do you mean electrodes in the brain? I thought that was only newly developed and an absolute last resort

I've been depressed for a long time---it's on and off. I've known that I've been depressed for a lot longer than I've known I might have AS (been depressed since I was 13, only learned about AS a few months ago). Do they generally go together?

I've had depression come and go for me. I was really depressed in high school, and I looked at college to be a fresh start, and I tried to make myself really positive about life and whatever... it worked for a while, I managed to make some friends and stay motivated in my classes. Then sometime in my junior year the bottom gave out, I started having some mental problems which then caused the depression to come on cause I thought that the hard work I'd put into having a healthy attitude on life and sort of build a 'momentum' of good luck (hard to explain... but do you notice how some people have nothing but good luck and some have nothing but bad? I was sort of trying to switch my place in life from one to the other (no its not really logical, but the shrink was no helping, 'working harder' at socializing was no help, so I was willing to try anything)) was all for nought.

Then later that year I learned about AS, and now I guess I'm not exactly 'happy' but I don't feel depressed either. I now have much more concrete ideas on how I can move forward with my life so I don't have that feeling of hopelessness in my day-to-day anymore.