I''ve tried every treatment there is.

I'm a 30 yo male who has tried just about every kind of treatment and medication, since the age of 10.
I've been on quite a lot of types of anti-depressants, anti-anxiety and mood stabilizers.
The anti depressants seem to lose effect but I consider them a somewhat helpful tool if used consistently. The anxiety meds seem to really only be good for temporary period, tend to create more anxiety as tolerance and dependence increase. Mood stabilizers I think work if you are having highly stressful symptoms and can't seem to control yourself but have strong side effects and I decided its better to take only small amounts, when the Dr. has had me try them out.


My stomach just can't handle too many medications. So I'm currently only on 150-200mg of zoloft (ssri), .05mg of clonazepam (benzo), 50mg of trazodone (sari) and I've recently stopped taking wellbutrin (bupropion) after trying it out for a yr now.


Zoloft seems to be the safest anti depressant with the least side effects for me, compared to prozac an paxil. I've been weening off of the anti anxiety medication clonazepam for a few yrs now and am now comfortable with taking only .5 mg a day. I take 50mg of trazadone at night and that helps me sleep and wake up feeling ok.
I try to stay positive and I have no desire to give up but also don't have any desire to do anything at all, everything is forced, there's not an ounce of life in me and I get close to being catatonic from the depression.
I've tried so much and nothing really has much effect anymore. I consider a healthy routine the most important part of fighting depression, with medication and therapy as a part of that routine. But it all is just to keep things from completely collapsing.

I maxed out the zoloft and added wellbutrin and effexor before that and a few others to the mix but there was no noticeable effect even after months and mnths. I've been taking anti-depressants for 20 yrs now and think they have no real effect anymore.

I tried unconventional medicine too. I started with meditation and exercise, tae kwon do, and just educating myself. I've done tons of therapy, emdr, hypnosis. I've tried ritual, religious prayers, church, shamanic healing, and also mushrooms, dmt, amd lsd. I've been pretty desperate and felt i had nothing to lose, and I think all of it can help in the right setting. Therapy helped once I found a therapist I liked. I know prayer helps some, just not me so much. But I did find small amounts of lsd when camping has a real positive long term effect.
I really think I was so out of balance, that most everything I really tried helped at least a little.

So the only ways I've found to combat depression, with any real positive and sustainable effects is with a good balance of activities, keeping as much a routine as possible, always taking the correct dose of meds at the same time, camping and hiking and occasionally with small amounts of l.s.d, eating right, going to therapy, being open and without worry of judgment.

Hello DeadManic: Thanks for sharing your experiences. I noticed this is your first post, here on PC. So... welcome to PsychCentral! I hope you find PC to be of benefit

In addition to the depression forum there is a forum, here of PC, dedicated to the subject of anxiety. Here's a link:

https://forums.psychcentral.com/anxiety-panic-phobias/

One other forum that may be of particular interest to you, given the wide range of techniques you have employed in your efforts to heal, would be the other treatments forum:

https://forums.psychcentral.com/other-treatments/

I'm sorry you've had so little success and am glad you're still trying.

There are a couple of times in my life when my doctors have said, "Look...let's just start from scratch with your meds since the results aren't consistent and it's hard to tell where your baseline is." Kind of a re-boot. This was always done as an inpatient for safety. Sometimes the meds we take actually cause depression paradoxically, but that's not necessarily the case for you. Have you thought of trying a different pdoc?

Oh...and welcome to PC.

Manic have you tried all natural maca? I suffered from depression sometimes extremely severe most of my 47 year llife. I am bipolar. 7 previous prescription anti-depressants would not touch the results maca has had for me. Energy again interests again. Piping rock.com has the capsules for cheap. Adjust dosage to your tolerance. I take a tblspn of the powder a day but I am 300 pounds. Hope you get feeling better. If and when you notice that negative thinking take control and say something like I have an abundance of health wealth and happiness over and over until it happens. Things can change I am proof.

I had no effects from meds except horrible side effects. Luckily I had a pdoc that did research on meds & alternative treatments. He had found that 1800mg/day of the Omega -3 EPA (not DHA) wirks well on depression. I found one that also had a high dose of DHA. The EPA helped my depression & the DHA helped me regain memory & thinking ability. I would talk & just lose words before that.

At that same time I left the marriage I had been in for 33 years. Found an awesome T & after several years if intense DBT therapy & realuzed that my growing up environment had been stressful in a very similar way as my marriage. 54 years of living like that & other outside things happening brought me crashing down. Getting away from everything gave me the ability to start healing, using totally natural means.

This however seems to mostly apply to situational caused mental illness when one can remove themselves from the situation.

Chemical imbalances that may be inherited or drug induced are a different thing. Sometimes it is not easy to distinguish & even mental health professionals don't always get it because the symptoms all present themselves the same & when a situation becomes seemingly the norm even the person themselves doesn't get it.

I know my pdocs for years were frustrated by my horrible side effects & seemingly treatment resistent depression where I was hospitalized continually for sui attempts. Looking back I can see 20/20 that those attempts were seriously what I felt was my only way out of being trapped. A horrible 13 years of my life until a way out finally came to me.

Mental health & treatments are so complicated.

Have you tried ECT or ketamine? I've read they are doing research on LSD for treatment resistant depression, have you heard much about it?

Have you researched or tried TMS? May be worth exploring with a psychiatrist/MD as something to consider prior to ECT.