Some examples of what I tried to get me undepressed and how well they worked
Talking with someone- I went to talk with counselors, friends, and psychologists. They helped to various degrees. I feel like I got the most out of those friends of mine who I talked to. This was all different levels of in-depth-ness. Some were just friends hanging out with me- they didn’t even know I was having such difficulty or their part in helping me. Some were people I went to demanding answers. They were courteous given my level of anger and annoyingness. The ones who managed to tolerate me are still my close friends today. The professionals I talked to were nice, but I don’t think I had long term benefits stemming from the times I met with them. One in particular was more my friend than the others and I think I got the best benefit from him and just the talking about how I felt on different days and what was going on in my life.
I never had what you would call therapy with a psychotherapist. It seems like it would have been very expensive to meet with someone for long periods of time every week and it may have been more intense than what I needed. I did visit a psychiatrist, who perscribed me drugs. Jay (that one nice professional one) told me that psychologists talk to you and psychiatrists prescribe drugs to you but usually don’t talk beyond very breifly. That’s basically why they have different titles.
This page from a women’t health website puts it most succinctly about the two I’ve just mentioned, plus psychoanalyst is described as well. http://www.estronaut.com/a/psychiatrist_differences.htm
Going out and doing things I liked- This was sometimes okay, sometimes awkward. I was always really terrified that my friends would see me being grouchy and think I didn’t like them anymore. It was really hard to have fun doing anything. I still feel like I was such a pain in the butt to be around, but it was better for me to be out of the house once in a while than in it all the time. This was especially important because of the fact that it would have been really easy to stay in the house during the depressed times which were mostly in the winter.
Staying in and doing things I liked- I stockpiled a lot of activities that I loved in my non-depressed times to use in my depression. I have tapes of several solid hours of my favorite shows that I watched to make me feel better. I also tried watching my favorite website (among my links currently) reading favorite books and listening to favorite music. These things were all very worth having. They calmed me down from being quite upset at times. The problem with these things was that they acted as a ‘fix’ that really sort of stopped once the show/music/book ended. Usually the high level of me being upset had also ended by then, but I would still be moderately upset; the show or song couldn’t totally erase my sadness.
Cutting things up with sharp objects- This I did somewhat compulsively in my depression. It started (I DON’T RECOMMEND THIS!) with me cutting my skin in places. Little tiny cuts the size of paper cuts which weren’t meant to kill me, just well, cut me. I think I liked the idea of controlling my pain, controlling the blade that hurt me, and being able to say when the pain stopped and started. These were things which I did not have from the mental pain of the depression. I was in no control over that. Why not be in control for once? Well as a biologist I can think of a few reasons not to do this again. Infection is a big one. If the cuts are big enough scars are also a possible result. Anyways, these people around kept (rightly) telling me to stop, so I found that cutting cardboard with a blade was almost as fulfilling as cutting me. Other things I did were tearing old catalogs apart and cutting up old clothing. I guess these worked as sort of a venting if you will, but they were still on the rather violent side and according to Dan, didn’t dissipate my depressed feelings any.
Medication- I took meds for my depression when it got so I couldn’t do the things I needed to do in my daily life with ease anymore. I was recommended to this course of action after a depression the year before with no medication. This depression/anxiety seemed to hit me harder and came around my last semester of college which was stressing me out. We identified the fact that the it was probably graduation related and would go away once my life got back into a stable routine. My psychiatrist immediately recommended celexa until after this event had come and gone and I felt better. I ended up being on celexa for a year and five months, then I was drug free for seven months and then went back on celexa for another six or seven months. Both times it was agreed that I really needed something to help me and prescription drugs could do that for me. While I was on celexa it helped me relax my feelings some, enough to deal with things going on in my life. I felt it was doing what it needed to. (I’ve got lots more to say on this, but read my next post on meds)
Light therapy- I bought a light box to try light therapy. It was rather expensive, and I hadn’t tried it out beyond briefly in my college days (three days is NOT enough to see results) so it was a gamble. From what I knew of my depression, I was seasonaly affected by the lack of light in winter compared to summer. My depressions have always been in winter (besides one notable difference I will explain in my next post) and I feel distinctly more sad on darker days. I wish I had time to go into light therapy and background about it and current research and SAD and winter blues, there’s so much I would explain. I’ll limit myself here though to telling you that light therapy #1- is real #2- is NOT the same as having a fluorescent bulb in a lamp or sitting in a tanning bed #3- will not burn your skin or eyes #4- does involve just sitting and looking at a special light for an hour/ half hour. #5- is helpful to people who suffer from SAD (seasonal affective disorder) and winter blues
I got my lightbox from sunbox company which is a very good one, they’ve been in business since 1985 when barely anyone knew about light therapy. Since they are still in business, obviously they are doing a good job. And they know what they are doing too; there is research you can access from their site explaining how light therapy works and why it works and where it came from, as well as new research on where it might be going. I may take some time and put up a post paraphrasing all this, but for now try their website www.sunbox.com for a lot of good information about light therapy and boxes. Since this past winter when I tried light therapy I have not needed to use any other treatment for depression. It made me feel alot better, even than the celexa did. It is in a way more ‘natural’ because hey it’s light! Also it is easy to self-medicate so to speak and I can use it in winter and get off it when spring comes. This one has been the best out of all the treatments I’ve tried and I can say I’m very pleased with it.