my therapist wasn't allowed to let me have her email
but i so wanted to email her because i can articulate my thoughts in text so much better than trying to be present in the moment and talk about things... my brain does not like that at all and will shut down...

medication is not a cure to these problems, you dont just take a pill and it gets better...
what medication does do is help make the pain more bearable so that we can try to deal with it and work through it and make progress to hopefully get out of this rut of depression and one day not need the meds anymore..

before i started taking medication i was like you, refusing to try any kind of medication... i actually refused to go to a doctor because i just didnt want to admit there was a problem, but eventually i went and talked to a doctor and he talked to me about depression and wanted me to try an antidepressant... i tried it for a month or 2 but was drinking so heavily that i couldn't realize any difference...
so i flushed the pills and drank myself blind for another year and snapped to reality , like, hey i have a serious problem... and went back to the doctor and he put me on zoloft and klonopin... i was terrified of the klonopin because my aunt had taken it for ever and everyone always made jokes about it being some crazy medication that crazy people take and that if i took it then it would make me like her... but thats not the case at all - thats the stigma that has been created around all of this...

after i finally tried the klonopin i loved them because they helped so much!
and they didn't make me into a crazy person or cause me to pass out from being doped up or whatever... they just helped me to relax and be able to be more calm...
they didn't cure me, but they helped...

medications effect everyone a little differently, everyone has different reactions...
don't listen to the stigmas about these things...
medications are like a crutch to help you walk until you can walk on your own...

that being said, i dont think everyone should take medications... i think meds should only be considered when your problem has been ongoing and is really effecting your life... in your case it seems that you are in a position as such...
so maybe considering it isn't such a bad idea... i might would be dead right now if it wasn't for medications...

just because your sister is struggling with something else that might scare you a little doesn't mean that you will or are or anything like that...
you are your own person and your symptoms are going to be different...
even if you have the same thing she has, the symptoms would be different because everyones symptoms are a little different...

taking me for example... i have severe major depressive disorder... but i find it in myself to keep pushing myself, to keep trying to find a light to follow and trying really hard to be optimisitc even though i have been dealing with this my whole life...
i don't meet other people with depression that are able to do that...
and it makes me feel like other people dont take me seriously sometimes because i do this... on the surface i appear normal, alot of people would just say that im quiet sometimes but really friendly - but underneath there is a brutal war ongoing that i do cover up... so i do understand how you feel.. just need to consider all of your options... i know this is what i have been doing for the past 5-6 years... trying to work something out some way to make things just a little better...

and i was even misdiagnosed and treated for bipolar for 4 years... psychiatric hospital once for 8 days... while on all those meds and the people there trying to talk to me about bipolar and confusing the hell out of me because i dont have bipolar... they just made me feel more crazy because i couldn't understand how they were claiming i was bipolar... im sort of a researcher so i obsess over knowledge... so i had already researched all the bipolar stuff, all the other psychological issues and pretty much concluded that i had MDD but no one would listen to me because they just kept saying i was manic and i couldn't see it

but my point is, education is important as medication...
need to understand what is going on with you so that you can fight it...
understand the enemy and its weaknesses...

if you hear voices, it doesnt make you crazy... it just means that there is something in your brain creating these things... its all chemicals... and i honestly dont know how a huge number more people don't have things such as hallucinations or voices.. as crazy as the world has become today...
stuff like that doesn't make you crazy... its just the same as any other illness that causes distress... it just happens to have a lot of stigma wrapped around it because "normal" people are afraid of what they dont understand... and they dont teach this kind of stuff in schools...

we're all unique and face different symptoms... we have different coping skills...

i've read alot about these disorders... and i find it really fascinating... but i am quite obsessive with things that interest me... i guess psychology interests me because i do suffer from these things...

im rambling a bit, but my point is it sounds like you are doing what i did... besides you are talking to a psychologist, which i didnt do... until i figured it was time to really get professional help... and by that time i still didnt want to take a bunch of "crazy" pills... but slowly i learned how they can help... and they dont make you crazy...
just have to becareful that your doctor doesn't put you on 9 different meds at once like mine did... its easy to become overmedicated...

now im only taking wellbutrin (not taking any of that stuff they had me on for bipolar..)
and they wont let me have the klonopin back because she isn't comfortable treating me and i refuse to go back to the old psychiatrist because he's a jerk and wouldn't listen to me...

i just wanna say to consider all your options... educate yourself.. ask about medications that could help... research them a little... dont have to take anything right off and doc wont make you take something... but they really might help...

the wellbutrin has helped me only a little because antidepressants dont really help me much, but it has brought me up enough to get out of bed and not feel like a dead man... helping me eat so i dont go days/weeks without eating...

stay strong...