What caused your depression?

Yeah, I see you point. I blame big pharma AND the FDA for granting approval after 5 year trials. One was approved recently with a whopping two trials. I gotta wonder if that even took 5 years!

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I think something from my past screwed me up.

Even if the American market is important, all meds in USA don't get approved in Europe.

I didn't realize you weren't in the us. And meds (therapeutic herbs) hardly EVER get approved in the us.

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It's both, but I have a feeling I would have had more time if the nurture part was/is decent. There is a such thing as learning too much about one's own existence. Although I was more severely abused when I was younger, I didn't know so much about people and the world I lived in and, therefore, was stronger (oblivious), full of pep and hope for the future (oblivious) and gave too much credit to humans on the whole (oblivious). I made the mistake of opening my eyes wider and learning how to read between the lines. Knowing what I know now is the reason why I spend a few to several hours each day when I first wake up trying to talk myself into keeping going even though two decades of persistent medical/mental health treatment has not only failed but not prevented my health from getting worse with age. Therapy tries, when I can afford/find it. I sometimes wonder if head trauma + vast memory loss will be the only thing that would keep me compatible with the wanting-to-live-and-share-the-world-with-people-who-make-me-lose-more-hope-as-the-years-roll-on mindset. I often feel like an evolutionary write-off.

I would say it's mostly circumstantial. I feel like I have not and never been very successful socially. I wish I was but I'm not. Friends are hard to make, and my family has split up. It seems like everyone has it so together except for me.

I don't know if brain chemistry is the cause or not. I feel like if my life can change, I wouldn't feel so depressed. I've had some good times in my life before.

Coincidence? Nah. I had the exact same reaction after stopping Paxil because it was making me feel too numb and destroyed all romance* in my life. You get a surge of beautiful and strong positive emotion and feel like you can do anything, then one day you wake up and feel like poo on a shoe. It makes sense, in a way, if you imagine it like a river: The ssri is the dam, only allowing regulated amounts of serotonin to pass. When you quit, the dam breaks and you get a flood of serotonin, then it subsides and levels out; first high, then low, then medium low. I dunno. Just a thought. I'm kind of tired.

I think the brain adapts to the med. If you get an overflow of a substance the brain will downregulate receptors (does in lab animals and was always known to do so). Means over time the brain gets less sensitive to certain neurotransmitters. Then cut the supply and you get a brain starved in some.

Does explain the tardive dysphoria, I have no real idea why most people have a good few weeks until it happens.

For me it's a combo of nature and nurture. Bipolar and depression are in my family, and my diagnosis is Bipolar II. My first mood episode was a major depression at age 10 or 11. Then cycling through my teens, diagnosed with depression at 19, and bipolar not recognized until 29. In my childhood my parents divorced and my mom was depressed, then my sister was hospitalized for anorexia. So there was unhappiness around me that could have triggered it, but no specific event. When I was older there were hormonal triggers and stress that set off mood episodes. The worst was a depression and mixed episode following my divorce. I think my brain was vulnerable, and adverse events brought the depression out. My therapist just thinks I'm heartbroken, he thinks it's nurture, not nature.

The brain adapts and changes. I read an article once that described the med effect like a web that intertwines your brain. In order to remove the web you have to take it slow and very carefully. Sometimes the steps are very productive and sometimes they are incremental. That's the idea behind why withdrawal is so complicated and misunderstood as a two week process.

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I used to think it was a chain reaction that started with my violently abusive husband, which in turn cause so much anxiety that I couldn't keep food down which cause anorexia and that really causes a lot of hormonal and body chemistry reactions that leads to altered states.

But after therapy I realized it was there in HS, and both the childhood sexual abuse and my deafness impacted me much more than I was aware of. They said a lot of things I talked about in childhood was dissociative symptoms. I was diagnosed PTSD w/ depression first. The inability to keep food down exacerbated everything but then when they added the antidepressants I lost years of my life. I'm with jimi I was telling them the meds were making it worse but was told no and they added more stuff that caused a lot of black outs.

So, mostly I'd have to say it was nurture for me. Oddly the family doc sent me to the mayo clinic for a suspected brain tumor ( I was losing weight and had horrible migraines)when I was nine but I never told them what was going on. They did want to have me see a therapist but my father was aghast at the idea of any of his kids seeing those crazy docs. I've often wondered what my alternative time line might be like if I had gotten help back then? Hindsight is 20/20.

I can totally relate to you. I believe I was born normal but still very sensitive. I too was ignored, not loved, hugged, kissed or nurtured. I was constantly emotionally abused. My brain was always in fight or flight. I believe my brain Chemistry got all f ed up from this environment. My family suffers from all sorts of mental illnesses. Mostly undiagnosed. It's tough thinking how I could have turned out. But I have to accept Where I'm at or id have A much more horrible life. Take care.

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