How do you know if you're feeling good?

How do you know if you're feeling good? You might say that you just know it or feel it, but it isn't that easy for me to answer this question.

I've been in and out therapy for the last 10 years. Anxiety and mild depression. The last 1,5 years I had major depression. I had SI thoughts every day. I felt so bad. Now I have an antidepressant that works. Since I've been taking this I feel a little less bad, I don't think about SI so much and the thoughts aren't that strong. But now I don't really know how I feel (in general). Like what's my every day mood. I've moments when I feel sad, angry etc. That are moments, I know how I feel in those moments. But in between... Before these meds I was feelings very very low all the time. Now, not so low, but I'm not sure what I feel.
Life still sucks. But now I don't feel that bad anymore, so now I can work on my issues that causes the depression.

My pdoc ask what grade I would give to how I feel. 1 to 10, 10 = feeling amazing. I gave it a 3 last time. He uped my dose of Wellbutrin. I don't know what I'm going to say next time. I've been so used to feeling very bad. I don't even know how happy feels like. Can I give how I feel a 6 if I still think it's better to be dead? I don't think about SI often now, but I still want to be dead. Can you feel alright, like a 6, if you don't like anything about yourself?
I think the meds numb my depressive feelings a bit, but they can't change my thoughts.

I'm just really confused about my feelings.

Hi Chummy. I had a depressive episode around the same length as yours. I've been on meds that seem to be helping since around March or April. I've found that I started to feel better, but I can feel my brain changing a little bit almost week by week. My brain sort of felt exhausted and like it had been beaten up, and now it is starting to heal.

I have seen changes like much improved sleep, and I have gone from thinking about SI every day to rarely thinking about it. My feelings about being alive and about the future seem to fluctuate. Sometimes I think it's good, a lot of the time I'm not sure, and sometimes I find it hard to imagine the future.

I am taking my meds and going to therapy and working on trying to eat regular meals and keep a regular schedule.

I'm on disability, so I don't have a job, so I've been trying to structure my day a bit. That seems to help my mood.

Can you think of any things that you are wanting to do again or are interested in again that you weren't six months ago?

Did you have a good "baseline" personality and mood before you started having problems with depression? If you did, sometimes you can compare with that.

I'd be curious to know how good your mood has to be before your doctor decides to stop changing your antidepressant dosage. I find after a long depressive episode, it's sort of like coming home after a vacation to find that someone has broken in and wrecked your house. There's an awful lot of work to be done putting things back together.

I know when I'm feeling good, because I would be having a good day or a good time. There had been times when it seems like I should be having a good time and I don't feel so good. I could be having a great time with a friend and then I would feel anxious, like the sky will fall any minute now. Sometimes at those moments I feel like I would have to rush home to hear any messages that were left for me. Because I expect some bad news. But it would not happen. Believe it or not, there are times when I felt better when something bad happened than when something good happened.

Whenever I feel great, I always feel suspicious. It feels like it's not normal to feel good. When I feel good, I'm feeling like I'm being "emotionally" conceited.

If life sucks I would not rate it 6. I don't think your mood deserves 6 just becuase you stopped thinking about SI. What you describe is a long way short of optimal. I know what it is like though. I had depression from a very early age and until medications got me out of depression I had no idea what an ideal mood was.

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Hi Chummy. I can relate so much to the feelings you have expressed. I lost three therapists before my current one. I also have recently started on WB. I have been so deeply depressed for so long that even feeling a little bit better was an exciting thing for me. In the beginning the WB made me jittery ( in a positive way). I mistook this feeling for happiness. Maybe, it is just good enough to feel better, even when we do not know what to call it.

I don't think I'm interested in doing things that I wasn't interested in six months ago. I'm still not looking forward to going to a concert or meeting a friend.
I think the only difference is that I don't feel that bad and not thinking about si all day long. And I think therapy is getting a little bit better. I was really stuck. I would cry every time and I thought everything was useless.

It's hard to compare it with how it was before. Even before this depression got really bad, I had already been dealing with anxiety and mild depression. That started when I was about 15. I can't really remembber how I felt before. I was more or less just living in the moment. I was insecure, but I did had ''dreams'' about the future.
Now I just think it's all hopeless. I go to therapy every week and sometimes I think that maybe things can get better. But mostly I dont think it's possible.

I don't know how ''good'' I should feel for my pdoc to stop changing the dose/meds. So far this med is the only one that does something. I feel less worse during the day, I think way less about si and I fall in sleep sooner.
I don't know if this enough. I don't know if this the best a med can do for me. Maybe this is the right med and to really feel better I should keep going to therapy.
I will have to discuss this with my pdoc, but I want to know a bit what to tell him.

Maybe it is. I really don't know how feeling good feels. I know the feelings that feel bad. But positive feelings... I've felt a little bit of proud in the last 6 months. Maybe what I'm feeling is more a numb feeling? I don't feel as bad as I have felt for the last 1,5 years.

It sounds like you're somewhat better than you were six months ago but still depressed.

That's basically where I am, too. I have been trying to keep some notes about now vs. six months ago like what I'm able to do now (sleep regularly) and what I'd like to do but am not yet doing (exercise) and distressing things that I'm not doing now (thinking about SUI every day.)

I'm not to the point where I'd want to go to a concert. I have an occasional day where I would feel able to meet a friend, but I hesitate to make plans for this since I never know when it's going to be.

If you feel able, maybe keep some notes about what changes you've seen like the ones you've mentioned here and also what you'd like to see change. I had been using my individual therapist as someone to tell about these things and someone to not exactly hold me accountable, but someone else who knew what I had said I wanted to do.

Some pdocs use the guideline "increase the dose to the maximum or until the side effects become bothersome." I don't know if that's what your pdoc plans to do.

I think you should keep going to therapy if that option is available to you. I'm very pro-therapy, though.

Meds work slowly sometimes. Like I said, I've been at the same dosage since April, but it's like I can feel my brain still changing. It hasn't all been steady progress. I have some setbacks, but they are usually no longer than 2-3 days.

I am going to give you a link to something called the Eight Dimensions of Wellness. It's something I've been using as a guide to what improvements I'd like to see in my life. I look at it as a sort of 5-year plan, since I am nowhere near health in all these areas. I'm just improving some in the physical and emotional and environmental areas right now.

There are different versions of these eight dimensions around. I just noticed that I seemed to keep seeing lists of areas of life to strive for mental health in, and I chose this one to use.

Very well said! I got very excited, too, when I first started being able to sleep regularly and felt like I could leave my apartment.

I was unhappy that this excitement wore off after the new state became more of a routine feeling. I'm still feeling much better, though. I'm not feeling like I'd like to be feeling, and I have a lot of "repair work" to do on my life, but I have made progress.