What if there's no recourse -- the condition has won?

Talk therapy hasn't worked. Various medications, I now realize, worked as a placebo -- had no actual physiological effect. I have no social network to speak of. I only attract people who are, to various degrees, toxic.

My condition seems untreatable in any substantive way. Is that possible? Can depression, under certain circumstances, actually be untreatable? What then?

Hello Manqueman: Yes, there certainly are people for whom neither therapy nor antidepressants (or other psych med's) are helpful. The Skeezyks is one of them. In my case, I have simply organized my life, as much as possible, to coincide with my mental health issues. I'm as reclusive as it is reasonably possible for me to be. I employ a meditation practice. And I do a variety of other things that help me to carry on without resorting to therapy or psych med's. I am fortunate though in being an older person. So I no longer am forced to be out in the world pursing gainful employment, socializing, etc.

I see this is your first post here on PC. So... welcome to PsychCentral… from the Skeezyks! I hope you find the time you spend here to be of benefit.

PsychCentral is a great place to get information as well as support for mental health issues. There are many knowledgeable & caring members here. The more you post, & reply to other members’ posts, the more a part of the community you will become. Plus there are social groups you can join & chat rooms where you’ll be able to connect with other PC members in real time (once your first 5 posts have been reviewed & approved.) Lots of great stuff! So please keep posting!

Welcome to PC.

I'm afraid there are those of us for whom therapy and medication prove to have a marginal effect on our mental health.

Like the Skeezyks has learned to I'm trying to learn to live with what is now more severe depression than I have had for most of my life. I did have many years living with mild to moderate depression and still have a reasonable quality of life.
Now I'm trying to find strategies to improve my quality of life being the way I am now.

I hope you find information and support here.
People here have helped me through some dark times and I hope you get as much encouragement from this community as I have.

We're here for each other!

So guys, a lack of hope is something that happens, and is just the way it's going to be.

I've wondered the same thing. Antidepressants don't seem to be cutting it for me, and psychotherapy can only do so much for you. Personally, I don't think that the illness is untreatable, but perhaps incurable. I've done a lot of reading on the subject and I have came to the conclusion that I may suffer from my depression the rest of my life. It's really not that uncommon.

Like others have mentioned, there are things that I do that do seem to help. Keeping yourself busy, -- walking in the sunshine, eating some dark chocolate, socializing, laughing... all these things are supposed to be natural mood boosters and I've had some success with them. I think over time you adapt to it and you learn to cope more.

I'm sorry to whatever lead you to the forum, but I am glad that you are here. Welcome

Hey friends...I've been - what we used to call Manic Depressive Type II- all my life, and I'm 47 now. I think the old term for it describes it better, frankly. And 47 yrs is a long time to be under the thumb of that miserable bugger, so I have learned an incredible array of coping skills, a lot of bad ones, and a lot of good ones. But I was treated for Depression, mistakenly, until after a personal tragedy when I was 40. Then I was rediagnosed and given the proper medication. WOW what a difference! Did it fix me? No. It all but banished the the hypomania quite easily, but the depression appears to be my lifelong buddy. I didn't join PsycheCentral looking for this forum feed specifically, but when I saw the "treatment resistant" feed I was kind of excited by the idea of finding others like myself. When, after a fews years of therapy and trying just about every drug under the sun, and FINALLY getting my hopes up that i wouldn't have to live like this forever, I was totally devastated to be told that they believed my depression was untreatable. I was truly heartbroken. I almost didn't survive the news. However...

Without going into detail, I had the great fortune of running into some people, some very stupid people, who treated me as though my life was as worthless as I also thought it was. It was fortunate, because when they started ACTING OUT those crazy and groundless thoughts I was having I could see how ridiculous they were. My life absolutely WAS worthwhile, even if I was not operating at 100% because of the depression and other disabilities. I learned from those jerks that the ONLY sane response to suffering is compassion. More than therapy, more than the right drug, what I needed to learn was to treat myself with more compassion.

Since that day I heard those people openly criticize me in the cruelest and dumbest ways for being less than capable because of my illness, I have not criticized or put myself down once. It has made all the difference. It seems that self-compassion and despair are not compatible.

Having a great doctor on your side to monitor your condition and who is willing to do what is necessary to make sure you don't go so low that you hit the floor is also necessary to a life worth living. Someone who is always keeping an eye out for a drug that may give you just a bit more relief. Someone who is unwilling to let you slip through the cracks. I have been blessed with a doc like that. She monitors me constantly just checking in with me to make sure that even when I'm down, I'm not so down that I don't feel my life is not worth living.

Good luck, Manquemen, if you're still around. And thank you to the others for letting me know I'm not alone. I needed to hear that. It's a hard cross to bear, so to speak. It can still be scary for me sometimes. This last LONG bout of depression is hanging on longer than usual.

Thank you sleepybuddah,

Your post, though gritty and with no false hope has challenged me with some hope of a life which is of value and meaningful in spite of (and dare I hope because of) lifelong depression.

We owe it to ourselves to be compassionate and understanding to ourselves because WE ARE WORTH IT whatever our life so far and other people have told us.

I don't know if depression becomes untreatable over time, but I do know that I had depression for close to 40 years and bipolar for over 25 years when I went off meds and started treating myself using amino acids and the mineral supplement lithium orotate. When I was on meds for 13+ years, my moods were subdued more than controlled as meds seem more to sedate and zomphify most people.

Now that I'm on amino acids and lithium orotate, my mood is good--I'm happy without being hypomanic, my life has purpose which it certainly didn't when I was on meds as I was very depressed most of the time and feeling worthless. It's nothing short of a miracle the difference using alternative treatment has made in my life!!

The thing people need to understand is that meds like antidepressants don't enable the brain to produce neurotransmitters that keep the mood stable. What they do is keep the neurotransmitters that are there from being reabsorbed as they're supposed to so they end up old and stale and not able to do their job. I like to think of this as being on a long flight breathing recirculated stale air. I believe [and this is strictly my personal opinion based on my experience and research] that people with mood disorders aren't able to produce the neurotransmitters needed to keep our moods stable and happy. I think of it like juvenile diabetes where the child has to take insulin because his pancreas doesn't produce it. That's how I see my brain--it needs to be given the amino acids and lithium orotate to keep my mood stable.

Here are a couple of articles about using amino acids to improve your mood:

https://experiencelife.com/article/a...-improve-mood/
http://www.naturalnews.com/034030_am...addiction.html

This is a brain function questionnaire showing what emotions and feelings are linked to which neurotransmitters.

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

Nil bastardi carborandum (sp)

(The quote is not about anyone on PC)



Fuzzy

Compassion: None to speak of. I'm avoiding social intercourse to a degree. Too much anxiety. And most social interactions lifelong have been exercises in Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria. I reach out, hand gets bitten; ultimately how every relationship in my life has been.

It now extends to work. The bulk of my income comes from a pure asshole. Correction: the person I work for is also an alcoholic and sadist. Yes, it is completely life crushing.

Talk therapy: I'm the patient who just ********s. Breaking through to honesty is difficult. And when I was in therapy, I had no clue how ****ed up I was and am.

Meds: Zoloft seemed to be a huge help. I'm still on it but it doesn't seem to be working, so the initial response may have been a the placebo effect: joy from being on the medication and it never worked. Note: over the decades, have also been on Elavil and Welbrutin. Neither did anything.

My body is also let's say atypical. There's a possibility that I have Kleinfelter.

On the long list of life, all the negative boxes are ticked.

(FWIW: I'm 63, male, mostly.)

So: No way out. Well, one.