To think once you’ve had depression and / or anxiety you’re never really free of it?

[Paintedseashell]

Twenty years on and off, loads of talking therapy, some trauma therapy and I don’t think I’m any better than when I started. In fact I think it’s worse.
Went shopping with dd last night, managed it but it made me physically sick. All those normal people out and about enjoying themselves, I’m so envious of them. I constantly feel like I can’t quite access real life, im disconnected.
Never look forward to anything, never enjoy anything, things I’ve previously enjoyed now make me feel worse because now they feel weird and it makes me sad.
The last six years have been awful.

Aibu to think once you’ve had a patch of anxiety or depression, which was fairly debilitating, there’s no real way back? It just hangs around forever?

We had a conversation about this last night actually, I had depression and my partner had a breakdown, and both of us got to the root of what was wrong, reshaped our lives, and feel we're out the other side.

Remember that the depression is a symptom of the problem, rather than the problem itself. It's much harder to fix it by aiming treatments straight at it; you have to look around it, behind it, underneath it. What do you wish your life looked like? What's missing?

Sorry to hear you’re going through a hard time. I think you can be free of it though you just may be more prone to it, or seek medications and treatment to live a full life.

Very serious and enduring mental health conditions such as schizophrenia you can never be free of. As sadly I have experience with due to family member. The worse thing is, conditions like these are still very stigmatised in society whereas general more mild ‘anxiety and depression’ is a lot more widespread and accepted now which helps.

Thank you so much @procratinationstations. I needed to hear that. Will keep trying. Sadly I find that all this talk of being kinder to young people during COVID is just so much talk. DD has lost most of her friends due to her depression- and not had much support from uni- and I find it very hard to watch. Surely if there is a time to be depressed, a global pandemic is it.

Can I recommend you google primitive relfexes or infant relfexes not going dormant and see if this applies to you. If people don't have their flight or fight instinct dormant - they feel like they are on high alert all the time with adrelaline going through them so its exhausting and leads to depression sometimes.

Those normal people out and about, lots of them are dealing with anxiety and depression and trauma too.

It's a shame that you've tried so many therapies and are feeling worse. Clearly something isn't right.

How is your diet, your sleep and your exercise regime? What mental wellness techniques so you use (e.g. meditation, yoga, mindfulness)

OP, I had thirty years of being medicated for depression along with decades of talking therapies and everything under the sun to try and address and reduce it. Turned out that I could not "get to the root of the problem" or use mindfulness or yoga to get rid of this awful sense of being outside life, because I Actually had ADHD the whole time. Might be worth checking that? Good luck. I know your misery

I agree that depression can be either a chemical imbalance or a reaction to experience or situation. The former needs addressing with medication (no expert but perhaps this can be lifelong), the latter can be helped and even got rid of by life changes. I was certainly depressed in my marriage and probably in childhood but lots of therapy and life changes later I don't feel it anymore. I look after myself and take care of my needs which I didn't do before.

However, with anxiety my experience has been that thinking patterns can cause it. I gave myself two bouts of severe anxiety before I got into therapy by convincing myself there was something mentally wrong with me, that I had an incurable personality disorder and was doomed. My family's scapegoating of me plus other people's reactions to me getting out of my marriage was the catalyst. I now know it's not true and I don't allow myself to go down rabbit holes like that.

It's interesting because I have a close friend who suffers from anxiety and I can see how skewed her thinking is. Unfortunately she doesn't seem to be able to recognise it despite therapy. It's painful to see her ongoing suffering because of it.

@MareofBeasttown keep going with the different meds. It took my dh about 5 different tries and 3 different doses to find the right one.

I agree with you. It’s always there waiting for you.

In the perimenopause l got worse. After the menopause l got much worse. Paralysed by anxiety. I’m on anti depressants for life😕

For me, it's a case of management instead of cure. If I am strict with my meds and avoid triggers, then I can work and have a good time. I'm still aware of the anxiety and depression, but they are sort of locked in a cage outside instead of being in my head and in charge. It's mostly chemical but there's also a behavioural and mindset component to it.

I think it depends on the cause of it, I have chronic depression and social anxiety, I have had bouts of self-harming, suicidal thoughts and extremely low moods since I was 6 years old and it has got dramatically worse as time has gone on (although I did not receive any sort of professional help until I was 15, earlier intervention may have made a difference). I've been on multiple types of antidepressants trying to find one that is right for me, although I am now on venlafaxine and that does seem to be stabilising me slightly but I still have depression. I will be on antidepressants long term, I go downhill very, very quickly without them. However - I do know people who have had depression and anxiety and are now totally free of it. So everyone is different.

No, you're not. It's essentially a long term condition that you can hopefully learn to manage more as you continue to live with it. As with any long term condition, it won't all be within your control, and you may be unlucky enough to suffer the worst it can give. But you can do things to help mitigate it and maybe, at times, swerve it altogether.

I really think you can get 'over' it.
CBT was a game changer for me as mentioned pp.
remember also that alcohol is a depressant , even one glass.

I agree with you, @Paintedseashell. I have had depression since my mid teens, due to bullying at school that was never tackled - I was having suicidal thoughts by the age of 14. I wasn't formally diagnosed until I was in my 40s, but the psychiatrist and psychotherapist I talked to about my childhood and my feelings during that time were very clear that what I was feeling was depression - being suicidal at 14 is not normal, they said.

I was diagnosed with PND after my first child, and had it after the second and third too, but now I wonder whether this was the clinical depression, exacerbated by a bit of PND.

I've been on antidepressants for years, and each time I've tried to come off, I have slid back down into bad depression again. I've also had group therapy and individual Congnitive Behavioural Therapy, which have helped, and have given me tools to cope with days when the depression is worse.

I think I will never be free of this - I think there will always be a certain amount of depression in my life. I actually had a medication review with my GP this morning, and he suggested I might like to try reducing one or both of my antidepressants (my psychiatrist put me on a combination of mirtazipine and fluoxetine), but I am not going to do that - I don't want to risk going down hill again - at the moment my mood is low-ish, but stable, and I can live with that - and I'm not willing to meddle with something that is working to some extent, even if it's not making life perfect.

But I do think that, for some people, depression is an illness that they can get over completely - with the right help - and that is great (though I am a bit envious). I don't think it means that they are stronger than people for whom depression is a life long companion - I suspect it means the roots of their depression are different, and were more easily tackled. Maybe their depression was situational, and when the situation changed for the better, so did their mental health.

It is a very complex subject - I think depression has physical and psychological roots, and the effectiveness of treatment depends, in part, at least, on the root causes. I do believe that some depression is caused when the brain fails to produce particular neurotransmitters, and if that's the case, they need replacing artificially, via antidepressants.

If someone's pancreas doesn't produce insulin, no-one judges them for needing insulin for the rest of their life - I think depression should be the same - if I need antidepressants, to make sure I have the neurotransmitters I need, and if that is not going to resolve (ie. my body is never going to start producing them again, of its own accord), then I shouldn't be judged for being on medication the rest of my life.

A Consultant Psychologist once told me that if you’ve had a severe bout of depression then you are 66.6% likely of having another depressive episode.
Basically a third of people will be fine & never experience depression again, a third of people may suffer from the occasional bout & a third of people will suffer depression severely / for an extended period of time throughout their life.
Unfortunately I fall in to the second third but am so pleased that I’m not in the last third.

The biggest problem I have is recognising when I am depressed or have anxiety or when I'm reacting in a normal, human way to a situation or event.
I lost some family members close together earlier this year, and the feelings that I experienced were very familiar, but I started to panic because I got those feelings and thoughts and thought I was headed back down that black hole again.
It was actually my GP (who in all honesty doesn't have a great bedside manner) who said "Don't you think you have the right to be sad and upset about what's happened recently?" And it made me think that yes, yes I do, and that's pretty normal for going through something like that, and that doesn't mean I'm depressed again, but it does mean that I have to be more careful about how I cope with these life events, and make sure that I do cope with them to lessen the risk I'll be depressed again.
The trick is the coping mechanisms to not stay in that place indefinitely, or identifying the issue in the first place, as sometimes it's not always obvious, especially if it's a slow accumulation of things over time. And of course sometimes there's no environmental factors, it just happens and may be predisposition or chemical imbalance.
It's telling the difference between those things, and the different ways to approach and deal with it I've found the hardest.

I can agree with you somewhat but I have had severe anxiety (officially diagnosed as Social phobia) since my late teens. I can't/or at least find it hard to relate to someone who has a partner/husband and kids (I understand that's my own personal issue). My anxiety is so severe that I have never had a romantic relationship. I panic about everything from taking the bins out to talking to strangers to catching a bus, too many things to name. And I'm all alone so nobody to turn to for support.

Yes I think you are right, I have suffered depression all of my life, I was one of them kids that had no friends, I never wanted to go out as I was scared, ( social phobia ) diagnosed at 15 with depression, I’ve been on tablets and have therapy most of my life, nothing seems to help, can’t seem to find any joy in life, don’t feel bad enough to end my life but not well enough to enjoy life, As one doctor said to me unfortunately your brain is just wired differently, ( she has helped me over the years ) My greatest time of the day is when I go to bed and sleep ( if I can ) some depression is with you for life unfortunately

I’m sorry this is your experience OP, but it hasn’t been mine.

I’ve had two breakdowns in the past and if anything, have found that usually I am more resilient than people who haven’t in a lot of ways precisely because of the various coping mechanisms I have.
Having said that, I am going through a bout of mild depression at the moment due to a big life changing effect but prior to this, my mental health has been stable for over a decade with no medication.

I feel like mine follows me around all the time so that it can pounce and have me back in its grips the moment I'm feeling a little bit vulnerable for any reason. I have to fight hard all the time to keep it at bay.