A little better, a little the same

I've been taking SAM-E for about three weeks which has been helping me out of my depression for the first time ever. I'm not convinced it's as strong or effective as real antidepressants, but the mood elevation has been noticeable, and it hasn't caused any of the side-effects I dealt with when I tried SSRI's and MAOI's in the past.

My scores on the depression test on this site have been holding in the moderate category for the last two weeks whereas they've always been way into the severe depression category in the past. I feel like dealing with my life is just a little easier now and am hoping this continues. I'm not exhausted 100% of the time now...it still takes a lot of effort to do little things, but I feel like a huge glacier of despair is slowly melting away...it's still weighing me down, but not quiet as much.

But, now that I'm feeling a little more, dare I say, cheery, I'm really beginning to notice how many issues I have that seem to be more based around anxiety and self-esteem problems. So, even though I'm feeling more energy, more interest, and less of a desire to spend my entire day wishing I could disappear from the face of the earth, I'm still dealing with a brain that keeps me up all night unable to sleep, and a general fear of being around people. There are phone calls I need to make, but can't bring myself to do it because email and text is the only way I feel comfortable communicating with people....it takes me a week to mentally prepare to make a phone call. I can go out in public and pretend to do normal people things, but all the while, I'm self-consciously wondering if my mannerisms are strange or if I'm doing something wrong. In a lot of ways, I just feel very disconnected with what's going on around me...almost like I'm walking through a movie.

So, I'm not sure what I'm saying or asking, but I guess I'm just wondering if my anxiety, insomnia, self-esteem, etc will begin to improve over time if my depression continues to lessen, or if these are separate issues I need to work through. It's kind of weird to be feeling fairly mentally stable at the moment, yet still completely uncomfortable dealing with the outside world.

I really do think a lot of positive changes are happening now thanks to the SAM-E though. It's really making me realize just how real depression is when I realize that years of attempting to will myself to be more positive and "pull myself up by the bootstraps" were a complete failure, and three weeks of taking some pills from the drug store has suddenly increased my energy, elevated my mood, and made me feel a little bit of hope.

Not sure what the point of this was, but at least I can probably fall asleep easier after getting my thoughts out.

Hi! I'm so glad the SAM-E is working for you! A lot of your symptoms will lessen a little bit but the important part is to keep working on them. Especially for the anxiety and self esteem, it'll get a little easier to not have negative thoughts but that doesn't always replace them with positive either and if something does happen, learning skills to cope are always useful. But isn't it great to start feeling better? Good luck and keep going!