How it happens with me.

I have had different phases in life and my depression has not always been exactly the same but this is how it has typically went.

I go for a period of four months when everything is great. I wake up at five in the morning without an alarm clock well before I have to be up to get to work. I drink my coffee and maybe write in my journal or watch the news. Then I start thinking about the plan of attack for the work day. I have always bee a foreman so I have to plan things out. Then I go to work and me and my crew carry out that plan. I am literally right in the trenches working with them and getting lots of good exercise. I just have to organize what each person does and do all the layout. Usually it is outside in the California sun and at the end of the day we all feel good about what we got done and go home. I get home at four and chill for awhile get something to eat and go to an AA meeting at 5:30. After the meeting I will go out to coffee with friends for an hour and then go home. I will do my meditation, maybe some AA writing step work type stuff, or read a spiritual book I am into or some fiction. Do emails. Sometimes work related stuff. Weekends vary a lot. I may stay home and not do much. Or I may do a bunch of gardening. I was real into landscaping for along time. Or maybe go camping with friends or on some adventure. I always went to all my pdoc, therapy, and group therapy appointments during the week. All during this time I am trying my best to practice the 12 steps, CBT, make good decisions, spend time with my daughter and so on.

Then totally out of the blue and very severe depression will hit. There is nothing that has changed in my life, no triggers, it just slams me out of no where. Want to do nothing but sleep all the time, won't shower or shave, no energy, no motivation, no interest, sometimes very suicidal. won't leave the house. I always will try to get in sooner than my normal appointment to see my pdoc and therapist when it happens but it doesn't really help. This will last three to four weeks and as suddenly as it came on it will lift and I am right back to what I described above. This happened three or four times a year always at the same time of year. Luckily I had a very understanding boss who needed me and put up with it. I would do as much work as I could on the computer and phone from home.

Starting about 8 years ago things started getting worse. The episodes started lasting much longer. Horrible anxiety with paranoia was thrown in and I had never had an ounce of anxiety in my life. In fact I always handled stress very well. The nature of things has changed. Some is due to situational stuff maybe. But two years ago the exact same scenario took place as I described in the first paragraph.

This is always the worst time of year for me. This is when the most severe one hits always. So I am in a similar spot right now. After having a really good summer. Things started slipping in Sept. What is different now is has been a slow very up and down thing. Usually I am in deep or I am not. My medications played a very large role in me doing so well since last April and I am not sure if they are playing a role in this mixed state up and down stuff I have been going through. Normally I would be in it very deep by now.

I dunno how to really treat it to be honest. If I am doing everything I stated in the first paragraph and it slams me out of the blue what more can I do to prevent it. I have always been in treatment and therapy and active in AA. Practicing all kinds of things that are aimed at personal and spiritual growth that would be seen as very healthy ways of treating depression.

I don't know where this current state is going to lead. The meds might keep it from going to the normal severe. I dunno right now. The current mixed state of some night not sleeping with some agitated hypo mania and then pretty bad depression and then days where I feel real good. That is all very foreign to me.

Some might believe that saying your treatment resistant is an excuse or cop out. Some might think that all depression is treatable or even curable and that having an attitude of managing or living with depression is the absolute wrong one.

I have to say that after 37 years of suffering from depression and 20 years of aggressively treating it I have been forced to face the reality of managing and living with it and figuring out how to best organize my life around that fact. Doesn't mean I have given up hope or have stopped trying, I haven't. But given all my history I have to face the fact that it is not likely to go away and therefore I have to plan accordingly. This is what I have been very much struggling with the last two years.

I have been extremely lucky in that I have always gotten very good psychiatric care and therapy. I have not totally relied on professionals. Most of my treatment has nothing to do with professionals and are things I have done and are doing on my own. I can make you a long list. Its not defeatist or losing hope it is facing reality.

For some people it is just a fact that living with and managing is the reality. I think that is why DocJohn created this section. As far as I know no one asked him to. Based on his opening statement to this section it seems that something in his practice or personal life prompted him to create this section.

I am not at all advocating that any of us stop trying new things or lose hope but for me it is facing the reality of how life really is.

My increase to 80 mg Fetzima seems to be working and the mixed stuff has balanced out. Side effects have gone away. The last two days were real good. Gotta a bunch of work done and made some money.

Glad to hear you are managing your depression well at the moment.

You are right it is hard work living with depression, doing all the right things but still getting laid low or developing a new dimension like anxiety.

Most of the time I'm pretty good at helping myself, but this episode I've been so hopeless and helpless, I don't know where that came from, it was like going back 30 years and knowing nothing about my illness or how it would affect me.

A change that has come over me recently is that I am actually getting into therapy, normally I hate therapy. I think having to fight for good treatment made me realise I can't do it alone.

Zinco I am glad to hear you are doing better. TheOriginalMe I am glad you are able to get therapy. I understand the concept of learning to live with and work around the depression. That is where I believe I am at.

I don't understand it at all. I can have a wonderful day with lots of good things and still feel depressed. My life right now is a mixed bag of good and bad. I am trying to learn to focus more on the good, but it is always a battle.

I have noticed that having lots of pleasant activities to do and look forward to seems to help me. This time of year is usually better for me for that reason.

I am growing weary of watching videos and reading articles by doctors who believe that depression, bi polar, psychosis, ADHD, PTSD, OCD, Autism.....are not even real things. I find it invalidating and insulting. I have my own experience and the experience of many other people I have known to know they are very real. I wonder about that lady I knew who went and test drove a brand new Mustang and convinced herself it was hers in a manic episode and brought it home. A couple of days later the cops came and told her it wasn't hers. She didn't believe in meds and I witnessed a number of her manic episodes. I could tell you stories.

I mean are you going to tell a vet that was perfectly healthy emotionally, mentally, and physically who then went to Iraq, got a leg blown off and watched his buddies get blown to bits and then develops depression and a drinking problem, that PTSD is a nutritional deficiency and not real?

You should attend some of the group therapy sessions I have been to.