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Are you living with depression?
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A 15 year battle
I've lived wih depression since I was around 16 years old. When I was first diagnosed, my psychologist recommended antidepressants, which helped for a while. As I got older, the depression seemed to change as I changed. My visits to the psychologist always seemed to make me feel better, until a few days later when I was left to my own thougts.
I got married at 22 and my depression seemed to be on an upswing. I stayed on the antidepressants, but my visits to the shrink slowed until I was no longer going. Life had become fairly normal, or so I thought. And then a slow decline started that quickly became more than I could handle. I began to dabble in drugs, and I had an extramarrital affair. Near the end of 2009, at the age of 31, I checked into a detox facility and tried to salvage my marriage.
Though I'm now clean and divorced, I find that my struggle with depression is far from over. Phsyciatrists want to see you for a small amount of time, 20 minutes, before they start throwing drugs at you that they don't know will work. And if they don't, well, it's just your sanity, and time off from work until they figure out the right one. I cry often, purely because I don't know what else to do. And my boyfriend doesn't know how to help me. You would think after living with this for so many years that I would be used to it, but I'm not.
I still have days, weeks, where I don't want to get out of bed. And if I didn't have bills to pay, I might not. And I still don't feel like I'm any closer to a resolution than I was 15 years ago. Luckily, I have a psycologist who does care, but she agrees that her treatment alone is only half the battle.
I got married at 22 and my depression seemed to be on an upswing. I stayed on the antidepressants, but my visits to the shrink slowed until I was no longer going. Life had become fairly normal, or so I thought. And then a slow decline started that quickly became more than I could handle. I began to dabble in drugs, and I had an extramarrital affair. Near the end of 2009, at the age of 31, I checked into a detox facility and tried to salvage my marriage.
Though I'm now clean and divorced, I find that my struggle with depression is far from over. Phsyciatrists want to see you for a small amount of time, 20 minutes, before they start throwing drugs at you that they don't know will work. And if they don't, well, it's just your sanity, and time off from work until they figure out the right one. I cry often, purely because I don't know what else to do. And my boyfriend doesn't know how to help me. You would think after living with this for so many years that I would be used to it, but I'm not.
I still have days, weeks, where I don't want to get out of bed. And if I didn't have bills to pay, I might not. And I still don't feel like I'm any closer to a resolution than I was 15 years ago. Luckily, I have a psycologist who does care, but she agrees that her treatment alone is only half the battle.
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