Posted by sweetmarie on April 9, 2001, at 4:46:56
In reply to Re: treatment resistant depression--ditto » sweetmarie, posted by Shar on April 8, 2001, at 23:56:05
> Sweet -- just saw your post.
>
> The combo (listed below) is still better than anything has been in years. I do not feel depression free, I am probably what some people would call "blue" most of the time. However, compared to where I've been and the various combos I've tried, and the hassles of getting off and on, side effects etc. - this is very good.
>
> Years--I've been depressed since I was about 12-13, maybe 14 years old. That is 35 years of fairly unremitting plain old chronic depression (more than just blue) with episodes of severe, breathtakingly horrible depression.
>
> Always lots of suicidal ideation. Even now; however I am squared away with the suicide issue, it's not an option.
>
Shar,Thanks for the reply. I`m glad that your meds are still working (or, at least working better than others have).
It sounds to me like you have Dysthymia - a fancy name for `pretty much always had a tendency for low mood`. The reason I say this is that I have had a very similar experience, with the depression beginning at an early age, and never really going away. I`ve had periods of very severe depression too, including the current one which has been raging for about 3 years now(`officially`, although I know that it started way before that).
Anyway, labels are only really any use up to a point. Depression is depression, and it`s a complete and utter nightmare, full-stop.
It must be a releif to be back to just plain old feeling `down`. I know that this sounds ridiculous, but I really look back fondly on the days when I was kind of mildly depressed. I didn`t even know the half of it back then. So, I imagine it must be a huge relief. It`s tragic that it should be so, but `small mercies` and all that.
I`ve been told by my specialist that, whilst they can almost certainly do something about the severe depression, the underlying low mood (the Dysthymia, which is a kind of genetic thing) is not so easy to eradicate. I was quite dismayed when I heard this, but I was speaking to my sister about this, and she said that she reckoned that I`d feel so relieved that I wasn`t suicidal any more (well, not suicidal as such - more wanting to die all the time, which is different I know), that I`d be able to tackle `problem areas` in my life, and thus go some way to alleviating the low mood tendency. What I mean, for example, is not going into another stressful job. I`ve always had stressful jobs, but I realise now that I can`t cope with stress at all. So, I suppose what I`m saying is that there are certain things I can put into place to help redirect any potential recurrence of this hideous pit I`ve been in for so long.
That`s the theory, anyway. Whether it will work out like that, is another story entirely. First and foremost, I need to be in a position to actually be able to see the outside of my flat now and again, instead of lying in bed all the time, feeling completely crap and unable to do anything. That in itself will be a major achievement.
Anyway, I`m really glad that you are still doing O.K.
Cheers,
Anna.
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poster:sweetmarie
thread:55847
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010403/msgs/59168.html