Full recovery?

Until I was about 20 I could read all day long without stopping. Also, if I wanted to do some kind of research, or work, I could make myself do it until I 'got into it' and became interested in the subject. At 21 I got into a psychotic depression when studying (though the cause was not study-related).In the following years my concentration was disrupted by anxiety. And my cognitive faculties were dampened by some of my meds. For some time I couldn't read anything, not even a celebrity magazine; I preferred to just stare into space. That was two years ago. Now I am off the 'bad' meds and feel much better; BUT though I can read a book it will take me a couple of weeks, or months instead of a day. Also any work which requires this type of sustained application is very difficult for me. My doctors say that I couldn't have sustained permanent brain-damage from it all but to me it seems apparent that I have. What I'm wondering is whether one can actually get damaged from bad depression, so as to permanently lose certain powers...

I was a firmware design engineer for 15 years after graduating with my BS degree in 1978. After my career ended up getting messed up with the down turn of aerospace in 1994, I ended up going into a major depression after the first year of horrible anxiety attacks. Many OD's after not being able to focus on anything & realizing that there was no way I would end up being able to get my career to go anywhere. I ended up on disability....which ended up being permanent disability.

In 2004/5, I went through another trauma that caused PTSD issues just at the time I thought I was recovering enough to try going into another field......It's now 2011, 17 years later. There is no way I could hold down a career....can't stay focused long enough for a real job. I can read & enjoy studying but it has to be at my slow pace now, nothing that could ever allow me to hold down anything like what I was doing as an engineer.

I don't think that for me it's really a permanent brain damage.....technology went so far beyond where I was in these years...there is no way for me to really catch up without having stayed caught up & realize that some is just so far beyond me & the effort that it would take....isn't even within my energy level anymore.

I just went through major depression with anxiety....not sure what causes the long term effect....but I understand the inability to be able to focus at the same level....yet in some areas, I have been able to put my thoughts together much better than in the past....just not in any technical area that could put me in an equal earning situation that I was before.

Wish I had some answers for you.....you are not alone in your question

Eskielover, thanks for your story. I have also survived several ODs, related to this issue (among other things).

'There is no way I could hold down a career....can't stay focused long enough for a real job.'

This is my big worry. Also I am afraid of trying because it is so difficult being obliged to do something (i.e. being responsible for some outcome) and being unable, despite ones best efforts, to bring it about.

'I can read & enjoy studying but it has to be at my slow pace now, nothing that could ever allow me to hold down anything like what I was doing as an engineer.'

I'm at a similar point. I'm only 31, so I could go into a different field, IF my cognitive ability returned. I don't even mind if its a totally non-prestigious field, so long as I could become financially independent. The problem is that I know, in one sense, that the capacity is there, I am curious, creative, determined, etc. But none of it helps unless I regain the kind of sustained attention I was once capable of.

'yet in some areas, I have been able to put my thoughts together much better than in the past.'

Because of what I lost I had to develop my personality in other areas, and become interested in things I dismissed before. So like you, I have had some gains from it all - but I still mourn what is gone!