Do you ever "get over" depression?

[FlameDelacour]

Or is it always lurking ready to jump out and get you?

Thinking back to the big hole story... I have been looking at the sky and appreciating the scenery again for a while, but then one bout of illness and a bad couple of weeks with money and I feel like I am back in the hole.

I know it won't last for long, I can lift myself much more easily than I used to be able to, but will there ever come a time when I don't have to fall so fast??

[expatinscotland]

I had PND and the fog is just starting to lift.

DD2 is 19 months old and i'm just now starting to decrease my ADs, although I still have the insomnia I've had since I hit puberty.

With DD1, it was 18 months before I started to feel better again.

[PhilosophersSecretChamberpot]

I think it is very different for each person. If the depression came on you out of the blue and you were formerly 'not that kind of a person' I think that there is a very good chance indeed that you will recover completely. But for some people it is an ever-present possibility.
Whil it lasts, put all your feelings into quotation marks, and say 'this is what I feel now, but it will seem different soon.

[FlameDelacour]

Had it on and off since about 15

Glad to hear you are starting to reduce your ADs Expat. I have been very lucky in that respect, had AND and bog standard depression, but seem to skip PND

[moljam]

i think you just have to be careful.i feel i could easily become depressed again so im careful.i changed lots of things-friends and things i did ,because i realised they were getting me down.

[CarGirl]

I sound similar to you Flame - long term depression, severe AND but no postnatal. I found that ADs never helped, have had lots of psycotherapy that did help but some days/weeks I do still get very low.

It's like my get up & go goes on holiday, I end up hating myself - here we go again!

I think it will never get THAT bad again but it definitely lurks.

[FlameDelacour]

That's it exactly CarGirl!

I was on ADs for a few months before I fell pregnant with DD, but I have never been sure how much of the effect was the ADs, and how much was someone telling me I had depression. I had been lethargic and tearful since about 15, very very low bouts over the years, and then at 21 I changed doctors and the first time I went in and sobbed on them they said it sounded like depression, gave me a prescription, and within about 12 weeks I was suddenly seeing the world in colours rather than greys, and came off the ADs.

I'm now 26, and I have never been down long enough to feel I need to go back on the pills, but I have found that my plummets are getting much lower, but shorter spells (if that makes sense??)

[CarGirl]

I would ask for a referral for an assessment to receive either psycotherapy or CBT (more probably) to help change the way you think/feel? An assessor would decide if they have anything to offer you and if so what.

[FlameDelacour]

Last time I went I was told that private counselling was the only option

[sweetcherrypie]

I believe depression is the same as being an alcoholic or anorexic in terms of it will always be there. I believe you can learn to control it but it never truely goes away.

I think that's why is annoys me now that so many people claim to have depression but in alot of cases they just have the blues. I remember a few years ago this guy who was 23 has just been dumped by his girlfriend of 3 yrs. He went to the doctor and she said he had depression and gave him anti-depressants when all he had really was the 'blues' because he had just been dumped. He never took them in the end and suprise suprise he was fine in a few weeks because he didn't need tablets he just needed time to natrually get over her.

The word depression is too commonly used nowadays because it's a long term thing that goes on for years and years and if you have depression it's not hard to keep slipping back to that place you hate.

[saythatagain]

I thought I had depression; I definatley has PND. A couple of months ago I went to see my doctor about it. I couldn't cope anymore. I completed an HDN form (I think thats what it's called), given Prozac, went back a week later and told my levels of depression were 'normal' but I had very high anxiety levels. Things started to make sense along with the medication and I feel so much better. My father has suffered from depression all of his life, I think I assumed I sort of inherited it from him...thankfully not. I sincerely believe in what cherry has written - learning to deal with it rather than expecting it to go away. Good luck x

[EscapeFrom]

For me it seems to be an ever present possiblility - a personality flaw, almost.

But some people get over it for good.