Ah, that was a serious issue I had when I first started having my depression issues which came into play after the anxiety of loosing my career & the local huge earthquake that we had in LA that January which destroyed my drive to work. Started off on medical leave for my anxiety which was completely OUT OF CONTROL & they as time went it evolved into depression & suicide attempts & anorexia.

My Pdoc tried every AD available but I had horrible side effects to all of them & ended up having 24/7 migraines when it was all said & done.....I asked my pdoc what the AD's would do.....he said fix the chemical imbalance in my brain......but my argument was that the AD's didn't change the situation that was making me depressed & without changing the situation, my depression wasn't going to go away.....& the fact that I had bad reactions to every AD proved my theory.

I could understand about how therapy could help...but AD's did absolutely NOTHING & even the anti-anxiety medications didn't help because the situation that was causing me the anxiety wasn't under control either & I was trapped in a bad marriage on top of it (something I didn't realize how much it was effecting me at the time).

You through the picture of your whole surroundings into the mix without fixing those problems.....no amount of band-aids in the form of medication is going to help IMO.

Almost 20 years later.......I finally ended up getting through the suicide phase alive.....but I never felt the compete peace that I needed to feel until I moved 2100 miles away from my H & left him....best therapeutic thing I did for my life. I went through a trauma 2 year before I left my H with the home care person when my mother was dying of cancer....& was on high dose of seroquel to sleep & keep the nightmares away.....now I don't need anything more than the natural sleep aids most of the time.......

I truly can see where it's my environment that truly controls how I feel.....but I did understand that sometimes those environmental stressors can change the chemical balance in the brain also.....causing one to feel even worse about the situation than is really appropriate....but looking back....I don't think what I was feeling was really an overreaction to the situation I found myself trapped in.....& would probably have similar feelings if the same thing hit me now given the same circumstances I was in at that time.

I believe however that there are both types of depression....that depression which is usually inherited & is a brain chemical issue....but there is also situational depression which I don't believe is.