3 and a half years i have been battling depression

 i was once diagnosed with treatment resistant depression. i was on some meds that just stopped working, and abilify, aka aripiprazole, was added. and it turned out to somehow jumpstart my meds. it was a miracle. i dont throw that word around alot. but for me it was very true.

once my meds were able to help clear my head and help me out of my depression, i was finally able to work on issues successfully with my therapist. mention this medication to your doctor, and i hope you are able to give it a try. it changed my life. i hope this gives you some hope. hang in there!

truly, laura

You must force yourself to exercise and help change your brain chemisty back to a normal balance.

Also, your diet.  Just like if, God forbid you had cancer.  You would want to starve the cancer. Cancer feeds on sugar, salt and dairy....

You need to eat foods like beets to bring up your energy levels and google stuff that will elevate your mood.  Stay away from sugary stuff.

GP and change your medication not all tablets work for the same people.

Also while you there get them to do a blood test  for V b12.

That is the start of all of our problems. Without having this in the body, You do not make red and white blood cells.

Quite a while ago, I was finally hospitalized with treatment resistant depression. Over the course of three years I had mixed drug treatments as well over 130 ECT sessions (which is not that many over a three year period - most of them were in the final year).

I got better. I was never cured, I never felt like my "old" self again (who I liked and who other people liked) and although I've found a few things funny maybe 2-3 times per year, I don't any sense of humor.

But I can feed and clothe myself and I can stay awake for a 'regular' sleep cycle, and that's a bonus. I can read, listen to music and watch movies and I get a degree of pleasure from these things. My depressive diagnosis now is just regular severe major depressive disorder (psychotic features are gone) although I have larger problems with anxiety issues now.

Because of my lengthy hospitalization, I lost my son. My ex-wife and her second husband filed for adoption and said that I had not had contact with him for over one year, which was true. The legal documents were served to me when I was in the hospital. I had a dear friend who had guardianship and Power of Attorney for me and she did what she could. But I couldn’t get past the truth of that “over one year” statement.

The last time that I saw my son he was 3 years-old. He was 7 when the adoption was completed and I lost all parental rights; I can’t recall the exact phrase but it was something to the effect of “as if (I) had never had any parental rights.” His surname was changed, of course, and his birth certificate was changed to reflect that change: the work of a masterful forger who changed not only the computer generated type on the certificate but replaced his “new” father’s signature where mine had been.

I had been erased from my son’s life.

He is 21 years-old today.

I’ve attempted to contact him but never successfully. I don’t know what my ex-wife may have told him about me (“that man is mentally ill and he’s not your father” sounds like something she would say) so I don’t know what he might think of me, if he ever does think of me. He’s a very well-known scholar in his field, having completed his BS and Masters in 4 years and working in his Ph.D. now. All over the Internet. He’s almost movie-star handsome… that is to say, he doesn’t look like me. At 6’4” he’s tall like me but I can’t see any other resemblance.

I can only guess that his mother divorced me because of my mental illnesses. She never told me why, but the papers were served, as would be the case three years later, to me while I was hospitalized.

I could go on and on about my son and the pain and sorrow that I wake with every day simply because he’s not around. He will never be around.

My reaction to your message was a gut-punch. If I felt depressed and had my son, at 12 years-old, around I think that I would be able to cope better than I do now. I feel no responsibility to myself; but to my son? I would hope to be able to offer him all of my love and all of the caring that he deserved when we decided that we wanted a child.

I don’t know that exercising love and care for ones child can actually abate depression of any sort but, for me, I think it would get me through the day and give me a reason for waking.

I’ve asked every psych doc that I’ve ever seen “what if this is as good as it gets?” Every one has put the question back to me – “what if it is?” I’ve never found the correct answer to that question. But if I had a child. If I had a child. I would be okay to live in that “as good as it gets” world. I think I would. I hope I would.

Have you had ECT sessions? They gave me, if nothing else, enough strength to get out of bed each morning. And that was a lot back then.

I am going to repeat a post here that I posted elsewhere in this forum a few days ago:

My daughter (25) has suffered with treatment-resistant depression for about 4 years. She had been hospitalized in this year January for the depression and received ECT, which at first appeared to be very helpful and then turned out a week later to not be helpful.

I was desperate to find something to help her and I read about the use of ketamine for depression. She began intravenous ketamine treatments in April in NYC. (We had to travel for this.) She had 6 treatments in 6 days, then boosters in June and August. She says that ketamine saved her life. It seems that she will need boosters every 5 to 7 weeks, for now at least.  Her mood is stable and good, and no suicidal ideation. Also--bonus--her anxiety is gone. She had been on clonazepam for anxiety for the last 4 years.

There is a ketamine advocacy forum where you can read more. 

Hello there youre not alone, life is to beatiful to give up and specially if you got someone looking after you.😊😊 I was dignose with mild Anexiety/Depression and it has not been easy for me at all. I have been like this for about all summer now and I'm still fighting against it. I REFUSE TO GIVE UP!!! I want my life back... i have not been taking any meds instead i drink teas or natural remedies to help me relax and cope with what im going through at the beginning of all this it was hard i wouldnt be able to get up from bed, go to the store or any of that i honestly thought i was going to die and i was afraid... so I started to get more involved with God i started praying more and asking him to help me i still feel the anexiety and i cry out of no where but i feel much better than i did before 🖒🖒 The answer to all this is to never give up.. For you to take control of the situations and even though its hard to not let Anexity/Depression control your life. You have to think positive if we are like this now is because there was something that we were doing wrong. It will go away i promise keep fighting!!.

Answering your question. I never heard of remission in depression. Yes things are better, no it very seldom 100% goes away. Continuing meds and seeing doctor regularly can give you a good life. Finding what gets you there takes time . The right combination of meds can take some time but the right doctor can in most cases help you? If your doctor doesn't help after 3 to 4 months, change. You should see improvement by then but for your best results it can be longer. Not set pattern, as we all have different body chemistry and degrees of need. You can hear a 100 different stories of how another person was helped. You can only get your needed help through your doctor and therapist. Hearing others stories help but your true help is only yours. Hope your life changes for the better in the very near future.