Depression

The symptoms you are describing are accurate. Depression reduces your systemic responses to everything. You aren't sharp, you thinking is sluggish, your responses are weaker and flatter.

Forcing yourself to be undepressed is like forcing yourself not to have an attack of diarrhea. Can't be done. Clinical depression is a chemical imbalance in the body and chemicals can be regulated only by ... other chemicals. That is why it is essential when seriously depressed to go get evaluated by a psychiatrist.

There is a huge difference between normal depression and clinical depression. Normal depression follows an event that hurts - your wife leaves you and takes your favorite Chet Baker CD, your purebred dog gets pregnant by the neighborhood mutt, your mother-in-law drives off a cliff ... in your Lexus.

Yeah, you get down, but when something nice happens, you emerge from the shadows into the sunshine once more. You find out that your wife got only the CD case, the CD is in the player, the pregnancy was just a scare and it was your wife's Lexus that your mother-in-law went over the cliff in.

So, you recover.

Clinical depression is different. You are slightly down all the time. A single event throws you completely off the chart. You don't recover even when the guy from that magazine place comes to your door with the $11,000,000 check. You say "Yippie Kai Oh," and then do not have the energy to take it to the bank.

which describes you. One is situational and heals by getting off your butt and acting. The other is a chemical imbalance in the brain and the serotonin and adrenaline are not flowing to the transmitters properly. This used to be something that could put people in a mental hospital for life or put them in a grave through suicide or failure to do the simple things like eat. Now, there are dozens of medications for all the symptoms that also help the body heal itself over time.

Clinical depression is not something to be fooled with. let go and you could become a statistic. Taken care of with meds and therapy, it heals and life goes on. Just remember, if you need meds for a clinical depression, for a little while, you will feel different. It takes time to feel like yourself again.

MiltT

How true. I suffer from clinical depression, have since I was a teenager, been one and off different meds since, finally they realized I can't come off

sorry hit button my mistake

Milt

You are right on the money with the difference between Clinical and Situational Depression.

One thing I do have questions on is how Situational Depression can be the tipping point to Clinical Depression.

I was diagnosed with Clinical Depression last year, however, I have been dealing with this for almost 30 years. As I can best describe it, after my Mother passed years ago, it was like someone flipped a switch. You are never the same again.

Also, the medications are all different from each other. No one med will work for everyone. I tried a couple different ones before I found one that works for me. I tried Prozac first, but, as I described it to my doctor, it was like trying to tear down a brick wall with a dental pick. Effexor works on more than just the serotonin.

People talk about getting off the meds, but, my question is, if the med helps you and the side effects are not objectionable, why would you quit taking it?

Sack, the reason for getting off meds is that for many people, the meds stop being effective after a few years - or less.

Sometimes, the body heals and the only way to know is to be "detoxed" slowly off the meds to see if you can function without them. If you can't, to paraphrase an old saying from the 50's - I'd rather be med than dead.

MiltT is right, I went off found out I could not try and get by without them. It is usually only people with chemical depression that wind up being on drugs permanently. But remember even if you have situational depression, it can last longer that you think, and you can become not depressed, but then have another situation which causes depression again.

you could also look at my other comments on Jan 9th it's never a good time for depression thread

I originally started out on amitriptylin(sp) and another one. Maxed out amittrip. and was tried on others, first Zoloft had a horrible reaction, then Effexor even use reactions, then Serzone.

Serzone was going off the market (at least in Canada) so was switched to Remeron. I also take trazadone, and numerous other pills for other conditions, so we are always watching out for possible drug interactions.

No drug works for everyone, and one and/or the same drug doesn't even always work for one person.