Lived Experience Forum

[Yellowbright]

I developed depression 6 months ago and started medication 4 months ago. Every month I have up/normal feeling days and then a few desperately down days where I cry, sleep and ruminate all day, on these days I feel hopeless and like I am a shadow of my old happy self and am so scared for a future where I won't be happy again or able to have a good relationship because of this change in my mental health. I don't know if I should take more medication because I'm having the bad lows or if I should keep going and enjoy the good days when they come - I feel like taking more would be going further down the rabbit hole but I desperately want to avoid the dips. Another problem is that although tbankfulky I have family and friend support, I live alone and on these down days this wreaks havoc with my thoughts, any advice for getting by and living alone with this would be so helpful please.

[Sahara]

Hi @Yellowbright, 

reading your post, I am remined a lot of what I went through with depression. My bad days were very bad indeed. I lived alone throughout most of my treatment.

Yes, it might be worth asking you doctor about your medication... perhaps there is something 'extra' you could take if you are having a bad day? I lot of people here on Sane mention that they have extra medication that they can take 'just in case'. 

Can you go and stay with a reletive or friend on the days where you feel at your worst? I think having company can help a lot. It seems to ground us and take us out of ourselves.

When I had severe depression, I lived 2 and a half hours from my family, so going over to stay with them was not an option while I continued to work. (in hindsight, I was so unwell that I should not have continued to work- but that is another story.)

Also, my family could make me feel even worse, if that's possible- depending on what was going on with them at the time. There was always a lot of conflict between my parents, which made my head swim. 

If you have a calm, understanding friend, then I would approach them to see if it's possible to stay with them when you really need too. 

Are you having ongoing counselling and does this help you? 

[Yellowbright]

Hi Sahara

Thank you for your quick reply, it's so good to know someone else has gone through the same thing in the past, I really like the idea of staying with a friend when I feel this way, I think it would take the focus off how I was feeling and like you said, it would ground me - thanks for the good advice 🙂 I am in therapy at the moment but mostly we have talked about past issues, which has helped me make progress but I think I need to bring the topic to how I am currently dealing with things and see if they could help me with some strategies for coping on the bad days.
I am sorry that staying with family was troubling for you, I know what that can be like and it doesn't help at all - I so hope your in a happier place now - thanks again!

[Nearly80]

I have walked your road.  Sometimes it took all the power away from me - I found physical work/activity was good for interupting the power of the "down".  I set myself goals and really focused on delivery - again the down power was interupted.  The more I set off for my activity the more power was lost by "down".

I have been seeing my psychatrist for some 15 years and been on lots of medication - but I still had to take responsibility for my own depression and, with help, deal with it.      Nearly80.