Hey all, I'm new here. I'm a 27 year old female, living in New Zealand.

I've been depressed since I suspect around 13-14 years of age, possibly earlier without realising it. I was diagnosed at 19. I get it pretty severely. Though I have improved somewhat as I've gotten older, depression still disrupts my life. I basically have about one severe 'meltdown' a year which requires me to take time off work. Just recently, a couple of weeks ago, I had a severe episode. I took four days off and basically laid in bed (though I had one day where I FORCED myself outside to go for a run. then I came back to bed though.)

When I went back to work this week I didn't feel ready, I was really out of sorts (to put it lightly) for a few days. Today, finally, I am starting to feel a bit 'normal' again but not quite there.

I have lost jobs in the past because I have episodes where I just can't cope with simple daily tasks. I start to feel that nothing is worthwhile, that there is no point, no hope. (you know the drill.)

I have not been medicated for about two years now. I'd like to say I'm proud of this, but in honesty, these two years have been emotional torture. A LOT of ups and downs. I got married two years ago and in this time I believe a number of marital problems have been caused because of my difficult moods. One day I can be relaxed and cruisy about everything. The next day I'll go crazy at my husband for something like not rinsing the knife he used to butter his toast. I get very rigid when I'm in a 'mood', everything peeves me off and on those days my poor husband literally can not get a single thing right to make me happy.

Anyway, I am seeing a doctor again on Monday to discuss the possibility of going back on fluoxetine. It's the first med I had for depression and it gave me no side effects that I noticed. It possibly gave me the sexual dysfunction stuff, BUT here's the thing. I was celibate before I got married. So I wasn't aware of any sexual problems I may have had then. So, fluox was pretty good but after 6 months it didn't seem to work anymore. My doctor at the time suggested upping the dose and that's when I decided I didn't want to take it anymore. It scared me to think that every 6 months I might just have to increase the dose - for how long, to what extent??

Months later of course I had a break down and tried citalopram. Didn't take it for longer than 2 weeks because of all the headaches and dizziness and nausea it gave me. I struggled on without meds but again wound up at the doc after a break down. I went on and off fluox another couple of times before they decided to try me on venlafaxine. Venlafaxine is the single most EVIL thing I have ever put in my body. Never again. Weaning myself off that, after only one month, was a nightmare and I had buzzing in my head for like 6 months after completely coming off it.

Since then I've tried an anti-anxiety med a couple of times but it absolutely KILLED my libido, straight away. So I didn't stick to that either.

So now I'm considering going back on fluoxetine but I am concerned. I was celibate before getting married, and since getting married have discovered that sex is really difficult and painful for me. I've talked to sexual health nurses and they seem to think there's nothing wrong with me sexually. So I am guessing that the depression itself is affecting this area of my life. However, I can still manage some sexual gratification with my hubby, even though it's difficult and frankly, it sucks that it's so hard for me. But I'm worried that if I go on fluox again it will outright take away the very little pleasure I can get. It really upsets me that we have such a crappy sex life and of course my hubby doesn't feel great about it either.

Is there ANY hope for those of us who take meds to have a rewarding and satisfactory sex life? Is there ANYTHING I can do to recover from this?

I kind of feel like I'm damned if I do (take the meds), and damned if I don't.

Is there an antidepressant out there anywhere that doesn't destroy a person's sex life?

Anyway, any advice would be much appreciated. I have been really freaked out the last couple of weeks (during my breakdown). I was really unstable and just couldn't cope with anything. I've been physically exhausted, with headaches almost every day. I don't want to go back there and end up jobless once again.

What would you do?