[Delicious]

It's my worst enemy against my true happiness, it's winning and I don't know how to stop it.

For me, depression is a soul-sucking monster, it absorbs the color, the light and the love out of the one thing that makes me happy. It keeps you blindfolded with your arms tied behind your back, telling you you're not good enough, that you never will be. "You're not creative, you can't even do it right. You suck, just stop, why even try?"

It's also cruel. This monster flashes images in your head and heart of when you used to find joy in creating, glimpses of when you had a million and one ideas in your mind and didn't have enough hours in the day to make them happen.
Now you just sit there, staring at a blank page, feeling nothing. Trying to make yourself do something, anything, just to get that feeling again. And it just fails...

[LucyG]

I'm sorry you're going through this.

Did you ever stop to consider that depression has a physiological basis to it, and there's a good chance you can do something to help control it on your own? Since we know that meds work on neurotransmitters, instead of taking meds, why not take the amino acids that the body uses to produce those neurotransmitters instead? This is what I started doing almost a decade ago after being on meds for 13 years, and my mood is far more stable than it was on meds. And I'm not tied to a Pdoc who runs my life and tells me what I can and can't take.

Here are some sites and links to check out on the subject:

This is the largest non-drug mental health site with tons of articles and links:

What is ?Alternative Mental Health?? | Alternative Mental Health

Here's a brain function questionnaire showing what emotions/feelings are associated with what neurotransmitter, and what amino acid to take:

http://drjolee.com/Brain-Function-Questionnaire.pdf

[Delicious]

I've been looking for something like this for a while! I just never knew how to look it up or where to start. My doctor had me take medication, however, no matter how I took it I felt ill, or either couldn't sleep or couldn't wake up.

According to the questionnaire, I might be low on everything (whoops!).

Thank you very much LucyG!

[LucyG]

Originally Posted by Delicious

I've been looking for something like this for a while! I just never knew how to look it up or where to start. My doctor had me take medication, however, no matter how I took it I felt ill, or either couldn't sleep or couldn't wake up.

According to the questionnaire, I might be low on everything (whoops!).

Thank you very much LucyG!

I'm glad this helped you.

It's amazing how easy all this is once you understand a couple of basic principles about how neurotransmitters and your mood work. I found this questionnaire in a good I had on another health issue so that's what I used when I went off meds.

Start with one amino acid and see how you do with it. If you're depressed, the one I think is the most helpful is DLPA [DL-phenylalanine]. It does raise your blood pressure about 10 points, but if you also supplement with a highly absorbably form of magnesium [NOT magnesium oxide--that's just a glorified laxative as it's only 5% absorbed so the rest acts as a laxative] it will help control the increase in BP. I find that so long as I take DLPA, I don't get depressed. If I don't, I'm in a low grade depression even with taking 5-htp.

DLPA helps with pain as well. I have my elderly dog who has elbow dysplasia on it, and it's amazing how much it helps her mood! I had my previous dog on it as she developed canine MS in her old age. Both dogs have done very well on it. It's used in pain clinics including for dogs and horses.

5-htp can cause stomach upset. I've never had a problem with it, but it bothered my husband when he took it for sleep. Start with a low dose and go from there. I take 400 mg a day in the evening, and if I'm not sleeping, I take another 400 mg. I've never had any issues with it, even on a high dosage.

Another thing to look into is what's called orothomolecular medicine where you give your body the nutrients it needs to function. As I said earlier, I believe those of us with bipolar, depression and anxiety disorders aren't able to produce enough of the neurotransmitters we need, but when we give our body these nutrients, it's amazing how our lives chance for the better.

One other thing that can affect mood is your thyroid, especially if you have low thyroid function. Here's a great video on the importance of iodine. I started taking this about 5 months ago, and am amazed at how I haven't experienced the normal SAD that I usually get as the days get shorter, especially because I live in the Pacific Northwest where it's dark in the winter by 4:30 along with just being gray for days on end. This it the first time in a quarter of a century that I've lived here that I haven't been depressed by the middle of September!

[Fuzzybear]