on depression

I have asked each doctor I have seen for my depression the same question: will I be taking antidepressants for the rest of my life? The answer has been a consistent "yes." The belief (or knowledge?) guiding this is that every time someone has a serious depressive episode, the brain chemistry is wired more deeply for depression, so that each depression brings increased risk of recurrence, and that these recurrences will become more severe. So the trick is to avoid the episode completely. Well, that means I am already cursed, since I had more than a few severe episodes since childhood. But I feel that the antidepressants, or in my present case, lamictal, which is for bipolar depression, are not working. Each drug I have been taking works for some time, a year or two, and then become less effective. What happens if none of them works?

So when I express my weariness and my hopelessness, it is not because I hate life or the world, not even close. When Beth Gibbons sings "God knows how I adore life" I usually fight back tears, because that is how I feel. Otherwise how could I feel the things I do so intensely? When I feel good, I am filled with joy at all kinds of things.

Depression is linked to some deep sense of loss. In years of therapy I have catalogued the possibilities, and dealt with the feelings of those memories. And yet, instead of acting as a purge, this just helps me understand, but I still get depressed. It is a matter of brain chemistry as much as anything else, and I have a feeling I was born this way.

I used to think that my depressions were linked to situations: if I just know what is going on with --------, then I will feel better. If I can just get this problem with ------------ fixed, then I will feel fine. Once I know the answer to ------------, I will be great. But I have learned that this is not true. Depression is like the weather, only without the benefit of a forecast to help me prepare. I don't know if is going to rain tomorrow. I only know what the weather will be when I wake up and look out the window. However, in the same way that my arthritic knee warns me of coming storms, I do have a sense of approaching clouds in my head.

Physical pain does not scare me. I have endured some excruciating things. Physical pain gives a focal point; you can focus on it, on alleviating it; you can breathe, you can scream. Mental pain is something else entirely. It has no shape and no center. But it is much harder, I think, for most people to understand and sympathize with; someone you, the sufferer, are to blame. You bring it upon yourself. "Think of all the things you have to be happy about," people say, meaning well. But this only makes me feel worse, because I know those things already.