yeh, it can be pretty rough if you don't have the right medication for it

I know, Ixion.

Believe me, I know.

Edit: I've looked into it before, and... well, I refuse to consider seeing a doctor. I have a problem with doctors, a personal problem that has only been elevated over the years when I've been required to see them.

bah all doctors aren't the same, go find a good one the medication can really help, if nothing else get some valium for those bad times.

I haven't read this entire thread... Only the first page, but I've got a few things to say about this.

First off, I think people who choose to end their lives do need a rather large amount of willpower to acctually take it all the way, I do not think that willpower is in the way of courage. It takes courage to have all kinds of crap happen to you and then keep going, not off yourself. The willpower you use in ending your own life is a rather poor substitute for courage that comes from the belief that theres nothing left in your life to be afraid of, not even death, its kind of like hitting rock bottom... Theres nowhere to go but up, and you even see dieing as 'up'.

I've been in two points in my life that I might have killed myself if it weren't for my overwhelming feeling of guilt at leavin my mom... (She'd have died soon after just to kick my ass for eternity in the next life)... I won't go into the crap I went through, but now I look at it, and the reasons seem extremely petty, and acctually quite small in comparison to what many other people go through. I'll never end my own life, because as long as I'm still alive, I know there are ways I can at least make other peoples lives better, and that alone is worth sticking around for. However, if my life ever falls to a level that I feel the only way to go is up... I'll probably find a way to vanish and start a new life elsewhere... Can't be too terribly hard.

Only doctor I ever liked is now inaccessible to me. Not going through them to find one I like until it's absolutely necessary. I won't kill myself (too scared of the other side of death) so I'll muddle along somehow. My fiance/best friend help how they can.

I've never wanted to see a doctor about problems mainly because my friend went to a psychologist and was diagnosed with "situational depression."

...What? Most depression is situational, I wouldn't need a crackpot telling me that

And actually, I remember this from psychology and I always found it interesting. People often commit suicide after they've started treatment or whatever and have gotten out of their serious "rock bottom" depression (around 6-12 months after they start, I think), because as they start to regain energy and are able to think "clearly," they're more capable of actually killing themself.

I don't want to go to the doctor, because when my sister went they made her stay for a month.. because she likes to read and they thought that her escapism was unhealthy..

They wouldn't let me leave.

Um, are you serious?! I wonder what they'd do for people playing Lusternia

I would never want to go to a doctor because if something was actually wrong with me (which can be argued both ways ) I don't want to be put on any sort of medicatoin and I don't want to go to therapy.

Yeah, she had other stuff wrong, but that's the thing I remember being mentioned most. Mind you.. I was maybe 8.

I love my doctors . If I never went I think I would still be depressed now. But, she showed me the ropes of cognitive therapy and pretty much taught me how to deal with the irrational thoughts on my own.

She must have found me interesting, she said I could come back even though I was technically older than the kids the centre she works in usually treats.

Depression is eithe rsituational or its a chemical imbalance. If its the latter then it's fixable and there's nothing wrong with you that can't be fixed, it's like a broken leg you look after yourself, take whatever the doctor gives you and you will be fine.

Unless you develop side-effects from a lot of the medications like I do. I have tried to kill myself twice over the last 6 or so years first time was kinda messy and was because I wasn't on medication at the time (don't want to get into the details there). The second time I went for the best route for suicide (the hose going from your exhaust into your taped up car with a bottle of cougars, my cousin died the same way) was while I had been on some medication for a while and I couldn't deal with the way it had been affecting me. If you do have a chemical imbalance though, you really should be on the medication for it as it does help tremendously when you find the right one.

Amen reverend.

The thing to realise about treatment and therapy, and general psychological stuff:

Most people, over time, will heal themselves. Therapy and drugs are meant to improve your chances/time of healing.

Those who don't heal over time may have a few reasons. Most of those are NOT curable long-term. Things get worse if you don't treat them - like chronic (and this "situational") depression, schizophrenia. This is the important part that people who shun treatment/therapy/drugs seem to miss: if things have been bad for an extended period of time (say, > 1 year), then they're more than likely going to stay that way without an intervention.

The simplest(!) form of intervention for psychologists to administer is drugs. There are certain drugs which have demonstrated marked improvement in paitents with certain conditions. The trick is knowing which drugs to administer and looking at what the side effects are/how they affect you. This is why going to Doctors and expecting psychotherapy is bad: They're probably not trained. Just "Give this drug for depression, if it no workie: try this drug."

Second step, which a lot of people seem to forget - and a lot of people suffering Depression seem unable to accept - that a large part of our well being comes from being social. We are social animals and it takes a certain personality type/character type to actually function well without belonging in a social net. Drugs and Therapy can help people out from under the covers of their condition: but to walk around in the sunshine requires caring friends and family.

The third step: is understanding the effects of psychological disorders on relationships. Often you'll hear that depressed people are depressed because noone loves them, noone wants to be around them. The big thing to realise is that those who suffer these disorders are often "unappealing" to others. Most of us have an innate ability to empathise with others and thus being around depressed people, as an example, makes us feel depressed. We unconsciously try to avoid people who are depressed: sufferers of psychological disorders therefore start to experience difficulties keeping friends and participating socially. This feeds in on itself: your depression makes you less attractive to other people, which makes you feel isolated, which makes you depressed, which makes you less attractive to people, making you more isolated, etc.

Finally: There's a lot of disorders out there and it can be difficult for therapists to classify and then find effective treatments for disorders. Have a read of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSM-IV - the DSM-IV is The guide used to match symptoms to disorders. It has its own problems - the notable example is the "labelling" problem which popped up in a reply above - but its an interesting read. You can find copies of the DSM-IV online.

Ok, so this was a long rant. The important points:

* drugs and therapy, if administered by a professional, can be effective ..
* .. but only when combined with a healthy social web - caring friends/family.
* not treating a disorder can make it worse
* not all disorders are curable: but most are manageable with therapy and lifestyle changes, as mentioned above
* we all need love.

Morik has the right of it. By the time I went to a psycholigist and actually got professionally diagnosed, she labelled me as having "major chronic depression", or something, for around four or five years and had me fixed up less than a year later.

Get some help if you need it.

Well, I usually diagnose myself. Been using logical thinking against myself for years, my brain can keep long debates with itself while I read or do other things

Fun thing, even if I can logically know why I do or don't do something, or track the origins of a feeling, gut reaction, I have problems changing my actions.

Actually, I do the same thing. Towards the end of last semester I was really depressed, especially because of this one person who said something really off the wall to me (basically that no one liked me, even though he didn't know me and was extremely creepy because he whispered it in my ear repeatedly), and it got to me and made me paranoid, so I spent my last few weeks dying to go home.

So then at home I was still depressed, and made a conscious decision that I really didn't care if people liked me or not. And even then, I started thinking about over the semester and realizing that if they disliked me, things would have been a lot different, and ever since then I've been about 10 times happier. Feels great

This is where cognitive therapy comes in. It is a way of changing how you think and how you manage your thoughts, logical or not. Oh and self-diagnoses is all well and good but it doesn't solve anything and you can't exactly pyschoanalyse yourself and prescribe medication.

This is where you have an angel and a demon on your shoulder. And the demon always beats the angel with a baseball stick.

And you'd be surprised on how good am I at analyzing myself Not medicating, though. Medication makes me silly and drunk.

Something else to keep in mind: those who suffer Depression often have it return. You may think everything is great since you've cured it but if you dig back and find that you've done this a few times maybe you should consider seeing a psychologist. There may be some other things you can be doing to keep yourself away from falling into depression.