Dear Charlie -- Thank you for sharing about your life in Norway. Your village -- minus the bad memories -- sounds like a magical place.

I know the despair of severe depression. Right now, on Effexor, I feel better than I have since my teenage years. Which is pretty amazing, considering all I've lost in the past 18 months, and that I still don't have employment and my savings are oozing away.

It took a long time to get a prescription that worked. 2 years, 11 or 12 meds. I even gave up on Effexor bec. it gave me hand tremors and made me feel all shakey. Then the depression got so bad, I had to start the medication treadmill again. But I had a new p-doc who suggested a simple solution -- take two doses a day at different times. As long as they are spaced pretty far apart, I very rarely get the side effect anymore.

You have achieved marvelous things on your own -- and I hope that you will hit upon the right combination of medication and self-help to relieve the depression. It is a miserable dark place to be.