I don't feel like trying anymore

I've been depressed for pretty much my whole life, I'm a male at 24. I haven't gotten treatment when I was younger, but started therapy late 2012 and meds in 2013. I've probably tried over 20 different meds in the last year starting slowly, then leading up to their maximum dosages. I have been so back and forth that I don't know what is going on chemically, but generally I felt myself getting worse, and worse the longer I took meds. My family told me I pretty much turned into a zombie from the meds. So recently, I decided to go off all of my meds completely, since nothing has helped me. Obviously, I had to have a problem to want to go on the meds in the first place, so I know I'm not really okay. I just need more people's advice on my situation.

So since going off of all meds completely, I feel like I can think again. My head is a little clearer. But that was only a week after being off of them. I feel more depressed now, on my 2nd week of being off of them. I've been regularly seeing a therapist since 2012. My current therapist keeps telling me how I act, because she lets me email her. She says that every other email I send, I'm talking about how I don't think I can go on much longer, I'm hopeless, I want to die, etc. But every once in a while I would seem just okay.

Just since my recent switch to being off meds completely, she was excited, but I guess both of us are really confused. I don't know wtf to do with myself, am I bipolar maybe? Should I go back on meds? I'm so lost. At this time of writing this (I never know what I'll be thinking the next day, unfortunately) I feel like giving up. I've never been a high-energy person, I don't think I can obtain this energy. All I do is cope with my problems by playing video games all day (I'm talking like 8 hours a day). My brain is over-stimulated and I can't ever sleep right, but there is no way in hell I'm going on sleep meds after seeing my dad on them (he's dead now).

Of course there is a lot more to the story but I don't feel like writing that much right now.

Any suggestions?

All I can tell you from my experience I can't handle life without meds. The depression goes too deep. I don't have much trouble with manic episodes, but the depression is kicking my butt even with medication right now.

Wow, Sadley - over 20 different meds in the course of a year!
It's important to get the diagnosis right. Is it possible for you to see other doctors/psychiatrists and discuss everything you've experienced with the meds and your whole range of symptoms?

Oh yeah, I've tried so many things...I've also had group therapy multiple times, hospitalization, and I've had a bunch of different people work with me in there, a couple social workers, multiple psychiatrists, 2 therapists... ugh. I've considered ECT and Ketamine injections. ECT sounds too risky for me, Ketamine isn't risky but its really way too expensive for me at $750 a shot with no insurance accepted since it's considered experimental.

The problem is, I've been through so many side effects too. I've pretty much destroyed my short-term memory being on the meds, and mostly the whole zombie thing. Also the back and forth suicidal thing. The thing is that my memory is starting to improve ever so slightly just from going off of the meds, and I like that. I should not be having memory problems at this age, pfff, what the hell am I talking about I shouldn't have any of the problems I have at my age.

Ok, let me tell you about my recent experiences:

I think I have thoroughly confused my therapist, poor her. I feel bad.

Previously, she referred me to a specific psychiatrist. So I did what she wanted me to and went to him and he basically told me it was all "mind over matter" in some other wording. And he didn't believe that Bipolar was even such a thing. I don't know that much about Bipolar but no one ever diagnosed me with it. I've been diagnosed with: Major depression, anxiety, social phobia, OCD, ADD/ADHD, eating disorders and dysthymia. I really did not like where he was coming from, I'm not even sure how to describe it. He's right, but I feel it's something I will never truly understand. I didn't like his attitude, though, so I quit going to him. So I left there with still the "meds or no meds?" question. I just flat out told him, "I think I am going to try going off of meds completely" and he was perfectly ok with that. I was like "I'll call if I decide to go back on", - yeah right...

So here I am. I don't know what I need, but I don't think meds work on me at all.

Wow! You seem to be pretty clear headed about it now, so I guess if it were me, I would continue on that path for awhile. That is, no meds.
Being able to think is kind of a big deal, especially for a depressed person don't you think?
I have dealt with this clinical depression thing for a really long time, on & off meds. What I see in you, is someone with a will to change, which is more than half the battle if you ask me.
Because you know sitting on your butt with a video controller in your hands is probably not the best thing for you, maybe start to taper off of that.
In my experience, especially when I was younger, I found physical activity to be key to my regaining some sense of self and a reasonable amount of productivity. It also REALLY and Truly kept the depression at bay.

At the time, I read & read and found that it was a bit like your doc who said it is 'mind over matter'. My doc at the time wanted me to stay medicated, I wanted off that not-so-merry-go-round, I wanted my life back, without the drugs.

I started a rigorous physical training program I designed for myself. I got off meds and lived to get that endorphin high I could get from exercise 3 or 4 days a week. I prevailed, it works! I am living proof that we depressed people can sometimes take control. I won't say it is easy, it is not, but for me, worth it.

I am older now, have an injury that keeps me down physically, but I am still med free, still have down (really down) days, but I know I will get back to a better place. I let myself ride it out without judging myself too harshly.

Sorry if this sounds, too chipper, whatever, but I couldn't just read your story and not tell you; you know yourself best, you can make this happen if you want to. You can at least try, you have nothing to lose.

I allow myself the knowledge that I have depression. I still have a life, and I choose to make it the best life I can, even if sometimes it is extra hard.
I am rooting for me! I am rooting for you.
Keep us posted!
All the very best to you as you face this beast...

I don't know. I really don't want to face it at all. I don't think I will ever be happy. I never wanted to be a part of this plane of existence. I am not a very strong-willed person. I still feel like giving up.

hi sadley,
i know this is an old post but i relate to your words/feelings completely. have you gotten any better? please pm me

Welcome Sadley,

I'm glad you've arrived here. One really big suggestion I have is to really check carefully if you have an underlying medical or nutritional issue. There are a surprisingly large number of common issues like that that can cause depression. You can find a video about this from Mark Hyman here



and an inspirational success story in the "depression success stories" section

http://forums.psychcentral.com/depre...r-give-up.html

My second suggestion is to seriously try all of the healthy safe ways to make depression better first before you think about drugs again. There are lots of things to try. Especially in your case, if I were you I'd be looking for a way to get better more refreshing sleep. I've made partial list of these things in post #74 of this thread

http://forums.psychcentral.com/depre...escaped-8.html

which includes what actually worked for me.

Keep in touch. I'm kind of excited to see how things work for you

- vital

One of the things Viktor Frankl used to use in his therapy sessions was a thing called "paradoxical intentions." Here's a short wiki about it: Paradoxical intention - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia . (Also check out the logotherapy section linked on that page as well.)

The idea is basically to actively practice the negative thought pattern in order to 1) overexpose yourself to it and 2) teach you the irrationality behind it.

I say that basically because all conventional advice will tell you to fight the depression and to not "give up." But depression is such a tricky animal. I compare it to the chinese finger trap. Basically, the more you resist it, the more it persists. Depression is not something you let go of. It lets go of you. And the only way that I have personally found to do that is to stop resisting it and to actively search for the beauty in it.

I'm facing a bout of seasonal affective disorder at the moment. In the past it's basically crippled me and turned me into a zombie, hating life and not wanting anything to do with people or my job at all.

This year, however, I've stopped fighting and resisting it. It doesn't make it go away. It just makes it more bearable. I'm actually off work for a couple of weeks, and I've been in my house for 2 days now. In the past I would be going nuts about that, thinking that I had no life and that I needed to get up and out and get moving. But right now I've just been enjoying the time to recharge my batteries and to watch huge amounts of Netflix. I especially have been drawn to dramas, stuff that makes me want to cry. And the reason I like that is because the crying actually brings this very cathartic feeling to me. It's a great release, and it's an even bigger release to give myself permission to do it without attaching all that negative gunky stuff about crying that men are supposed to believe.

Like it or not, your depression is a part of you. For many of us, it's not a temporary thing either. For many of us, it's something we are going to have to deal with for the rest of our lives no matter what we do. But that doesn't need to make you lose your hope or your faith! On the contrary, you learn to live your life in a new way. You find ways to make it work for you and live so that it doesn't cripple you and have major negative impacts on your life. And that, my friend, is actually very doable. It's within your reach to find ways to live with it (and to do so without medication if that's what your therapist agrees is okay).

I mentioned finding beauty in the depression. There is a beauty to our darkness. After all, you can't see the stars in the daylight, can you? I first realized this a few years ago when I was going back over my childhood and looking for root causes of my depression and anxiety. One particular time, I landed on something that was so utterly intense that I cried harder than I ever cried in my life. The interesting thing I found was that when I was crying that hard, it almost mimicked laughter. It was one of the weirdest things for me to realize that I was crying so hard that I was almost laughing. I thought maybe I was going crazy. But I felt so much better when I was done.

Later I came to realize that our darkness and our lightness is separated by a very thing thread. And we fight so hard to keep that separation within us because we fear that we will go legitimately crazy because we don't know any other way.

Nowadays, I don't fight the depression anymore. I embrace it. It's a part of me and who I am, and I am okay with that. It's okay to be sad. Depression is a bit like a storm that comes over you...it's rain for your soul (so to speak). Your job isn't to stop the storm from happening. It's to plant seeds inside yourself that will grow when the rain comes.

Anxious Minds gives great advice. Victor Frankyl was big on embracing suffering and finding meaning in suffering. Finding purpose in the smallest things can really help. I am not so big on logo therapy but I got a lot out of his book.

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Yeah it's "mind over matter" in the sense that if I don't mind if don't matter.

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Maybe you have ADHD?