Anyone totally recovered after 15 plus yrs of depression?

[kingfix]

So, been depressed on and off all my adult life. At 35 I have just started CBT in an attempt to get a rosier future for me and my daughter. But it feels totally phoney. Tell me you are all 5 years down the track and living it up.

Hello. Was just cruising through, saw no one had responded but didn't want to read and run.I have never suffered with depression but work in mental health. CBT can be a great treatment for depression. It challenges your automatic negative thoughts and enables you to acknowledge all the good things in your life (things that when you are depressed seem harder to recognise). If CBT isn't working for you and you feel you would like to explore deeper issues - possibly relating to childhood, then maybe you could ask to see a psychodynamic psychotherapist instead. Whatever you do, good luck, and yes, in response to your question, lots of people are 5 years down the track and living it up. I hope you will be one of them.

kingfix - Like you I have suffered from depression all my life - I am now 46. I've taken anti-depressants and had counselling. The way I look at it is that I might shake off a cold but I won't shake off the depression. It is a condition I have to live with and control - I view it like having diet controlled diabetes. So using all that I learned through therapy I try and stay on top of it and it can be tough sometimes.

I would say that I am now 5 years down the line and the happiest I have been - not because I don't have depression but because I know how to deal with it.

kingfix - Work at the CBT - get some help from a psychotherapist, and learn to deal with the depression. You will get there - it is possible.

Thank you.

hi , i been on cypramil for 10 years now and not feel any better really , wat is CBT please xx

personally I just feel depression is here to stay as part of my personality and just has to be managed.

i think CBT despite being 'crude' is a good tool to help me get a grip on negative thought processes.

I am not currently clinicaly depressed but I don't think depression will ever stop being an issue -I am sory if that is not what you want to hear but it my experience.
having said that i do enjoy life and have good support which helps me through the sticky patches.

It is important to find ways to identify triggers and thought processes which lead me down the hole iyswim.

like you I find that having dd makes me want to be proacive in keeping well.

I have childhood memories of my mother's own depression which I do not want to pass on

Although I think I have have had some sort of depression all my life, at 28 I lurched into a depression when every night I would wake up and tell myself didn't want to go on living. I couldn't go to work and had to stop driving. Amazingly I didn't think it was depression I thought it was something physical from the result of a car accident.

After 11 years of this I collapsed crying into heap in front of the dds and dp and he took me to the doctor's who immediately diagnosed depression and put me on amitriptylene. I stayed on this for 3 years until the birth of dd3. I never felt 'well' but felt I could cope as long as I had dp to lean on.

After the birth of dd3 I was put on citalopram. The effect wasn't immediate but I started to get better. Within a year I was confident enough to get into car and drive without thinking I wasn't going to be able to complete the journey without a panic attack.

By the time dd3 was at school I felt I could commit to a job. That was 5 years ago. I now work full-time, have been to college and contemplating a degree next year. I drive like it's second nature. This might not sound a lot to 'normal' people but for someone who spent years in bed under the covers unable to face the day it is a complete triumph.

Now I'm in my 50s I think of myself as having depression in the past, not something I am keeping at bay. Probably 5 times in the past 5 years have I felt a twinge of depression but have been able to shake it off because it is not my life now. Having said that I still take citalopram, only a therapeutic dose with the blessing of my doctor, but I don't want to stop and go back to the bad old days. I'm quite happy to take it for the rest of my life because I am so happy now.

I hope you find the same.

It's so interesting to read these. I do feel depression is a part of my personality and can't imagine I'll reach a point where I just don't feel depressed but I do hope to manage the bad times better. It's good to hear some of you seem to have reached a point where it doesn't dominate your lives. Like sfxmum I remember my mother being depressed throughout my childhood and I would rather my children didn't have that experience.
ktmoomoo, I've only just staretd CBT so probably not a v good person to explain it, but so far it has been a thereapy where you try to recognise and challenge the thinking patterns that lead to depression.

Have a look at this living life to the full

it is about CBT explains a lot and can be a good intro

thanks sfx, I am finding CBT hard at he moment and it is good to have another resource to look at.

I had depression for around 10 years, but have now recovered completely.

I think after a while, it becomes a habit like everything else, which makes it even harder to shake off. I had to re-learn thought patterns that weren't depressed, and I had very few memories that weren't affected by depression at the start.

hi kingfix. sorry you're feeling bad. i've had depressed symptoms since i was a child and thought i always would be depressed. again, i thought it was part of my personality.

but a yr ago, after being off my ads for six months i started with a new therapist. a family bereavement and my breakup with dd's dad made me realise i had to try and improve my moods.

a year later and i can say i am so happy. i am not depressed. i dont think i ever will be again. this is after about 13 years of depression.

for me dd's birth didn't make huge changes in my outlook. but somehow last yr everything came together. i was ready to be honest with my therapist and put all my energy into positive thinking, healing myself, and believing in the possiblity of leaving depression behind.

i am not saying it's as easy as that for everyone. but i think too many ppl are prescribed ads for depression which is actually related to emotional issues in their lives, past or present.

it CAN happen. people do leave depression behind. i am a different person today.

stay positive. [amile]

Kingfix, in short - yes it is possible. I've had CBT, medications and ongoing psychotherapy on/off since I was 19 (depressions started long before that - family stuff, abusive, neglect etc) but the thing that has been most useful for me has been body centred psychotherapy (inc. psychodynamic massage). I am not airy fairy and thought it would be crap but I just got so fed up of the intellectual tussle of classic psychotherapy and finally FINALLY, I have got to the point where I have got a bit of distance between me and "the depression".

Find a good therapist who supports you and keep going with it, being as honest as you can, and you'll get somewhere.

Like a PP mentioned, it's all about recognising the pattern of depression and being able to deal with it - instead of being pinned to the floor by it, you understand why you feel like that and have the courage to withstand it and know that it will pass.

Courage! (that was in a French accent by the way)

Thanks everyone, it has been really lovely to get positive responses.

no prob. hope the cbt is going well. .