my journey with depression

I’ve struggled with depression & anxiety for a while.  It was definitely longer than I’ve been willing to admit.  I used to view it as a sign of weakness that I couldn’t just will my way out of it.  I avoided therapy, medical intervention, etc because of the stigma associated with it.

For a while I’ve been in and out of therapy while I tried to find someone that worked for me.  My latest therapist is great and she’s really helping.  Working through my issues and figuring out how to address the things that make my depression worse is valuable.  There are definitely some things I’m grappling with and having a safe environment to discuss them is invaluable.

We’ve been trying different anti-depressants.  We couldn’t find anything really great until after we did a genetic test and found that many of the things we’ve tried aren’t metabolized by my body well based on the gene polymorphisms I have.  We also found that I’m predisposed to a vitamin deficiency that we are addressing.  Modern medicine is great.  There are definitely side effects with any of these meds and we need to do a benefits vs. side effects assessment to make sure the benefits are worth the downside. Until we switched up my meds I didn’t realize how bad I felt on the old ones.  The new meds side effects also appear to be less severe so the benefit vs. side effects decision is easy.

Until I got over my hangups about going to therapy and medications I couldn’t get the help I needed.  As a society we need to figure out how to get rid of the stigma of mental illness.  its a medical issue like high blood pressure, diabetes, etc.  People resist getting help because of the way it is perceived in our society.  Many of us need help and aren’t getting it.  Therapy really does help.

I still struggle but I know that I have the means to make things better. Knowing I’m not alone with the challenges helps.  Being able to admit that I have difficulties and not resisting getting help is amazing.  It saddens me that people don’t realize they can make things better.