@Tiredallthetime

I'm really happy to hear that you're starting to feel a bit better. What seems like such a small thing can really be a mountainous feat for people who feel this way. I saw you said you're afraid of taking meds because of your sister and I wanted to say that I totally understand. For most of my life leading up to my own diagnosis and real struggle with depression, I watched my mom doing it. She would sleep for days. She was doing drugs, which I didn't realize at the time. Ultimately, she got sick of it and started trying everything from self-help CDs to antidepressant medication. Here's the sad truth about meds: There is a lot of stigma about mental health and medication. There are times when the meds flat-out work. They work! Not always and not for everyone, but sometimes. And the worst part about that is it's easy to find yourself feeling like your personality is reliant on a pill. I can't tell you how many times I cringed seeing the look on my moms face after she said something snippy to my dad and his reply was "Did you take your pill today?" They've become the 6 most hated words in my book, pretty much, especially when they were ultimately directed at me. I felt like nobody wanted to be around me if I wasn't taking my pills. Now, I was lucky and I don't experience any side effects from my drug of choice, which is Zoloft (though I'm most likely going to have to get on something very strong for my anxiety), however my sister does--She has really horrible nightmares whenever she takes her meds, so she studies and seeks out herbal remedies like St. John's Wort to take instead.

At the end of the day, you're your own person and you get to decide if you want to take the pill or not. But I just want you to know that #1, you are always you and a pill isn't going to change that, #2 sometimes the pills work and that's okay. Take them if they make you feel better. And #3, sometimes the pills -won't- work, and that's okay, too. This is your journey and your footsteps aren't going to fit exactly in place with mine or my mom's or my sister's or anyone else dealing with depression. The best thing you can do is figure out what works for you and ignore the "did you take your pill today" questions. Those people are wrong. The pills aren't going to change you or make you a different/better person. They're just going to lift that million-pound weight off your shoulders and let the real you breathe.