when do you guys know you recovered from depression ?

[picard]

when do you guys know you recovered from depression ?

Has anyone recovered from depression ?

Is there any chance I recovered from depression ? I had depression for a decade.

[anonymouslyadd]

I don't know that I've fully recovered. When you've been depressed or experience something psychologically PTSD, the chances of it happening again increase.

However, the good news is that I eat and don't want to sleep all of the time. I want to do things and embrace life more than I used to when I was very depressed.

The signs of depression are many, and I would jot them down so you have them. When they begin to go away or become less impairing, you'll know you've turned a page in the battle.

[Drewbacca]

I was starting to think that I recovered. Normal sleep, generally doing things that I enjoy. I'm more social and talkative. All in all I'm relatively happy. I recognize that I can't dare go off the zoloft though, I'd be suicidal the second it was out of my system. In an odd sort of way, I recognize that I'm depressed at this very moment, despite my body not being in a depressive state. It's not even that I'm being unrealistically negative, I'm just an unhappy person. I'm unhappy because I don't like my body or my mind. I'll only ever move beyond depression if I stop feeling like a failure... but first, I have to stop being a failure and I'm not sure that I have any real control over that.

[stef]

When I'm out doing some random errand or on my way home from work, and suddenly it strikes me: I don't feel awful!

[sarahsweets]

I like to think that if youre diagnosed with depression that is anything other than situational (bipolar, clinical, sad etc) then your dont recover but you are able to control the symptoms with medications.

[Slo-mo a-go-go]

stef, what a great summary, it's so true!

I would say I recovered from depression and PTSD.

I asked myself the same question and its a good question.
When I first started asking myself that, I would still feel a disquiet when remembering the pain I was in when depressed. I wasn't depressed but I just felt haunted from experiencing depression.
I would say that when I lost that haunted feeling is when I could confidently say I was recovered. I found myself able to look at those painful years saying, I'm glad that's over. Like the cliche, that chapter of my life was over and I was new chapter.

Depression is such a battle. I applaud you and encourage the fight.

[stef]

I cannot say I've suffered serious depression;
although things had been not going well around 2006 - I saw a therapist, just talking to someone helped. I remember it must have been late February, I was wearing these awesome boots, walking near my old office and I realised that "I didn't feel awful".

However I have terrible seasonal depression and there is always some spring day when I suddenly feel wonderful, just because it's been getting lighter.

[Sir5r1]

My Depression seems to be under control despite some really difficult things going on.
My ADHD was not controlled for a long time. I couldn't move to make things better with my wife, who has her own issues and my work was mounting.

Things started to improve when I go on ADHD medications. The cause of the Anxiety and depression seems to have more the result of ADHD behavior. Even at that though I am taking Zoloft daily for a month but the dose is pretty small so I'm not so sure that it's having a large effect.

[hjajck]

I have recovered from my depression, which was situational. First time on meds, was going through a divorce and getting out of an abusive relationship.

Second time, it was anxiety/depression from my husband being deployed. When he returned, I was different. Weaned myself off meds (3 yrs ago) and haven't been back on since.

[anonymouslyadd]

Originally Posted by Drewbacca

I recognize that I can't dare go off the zoloft though, I'd be suicidal the second it was out of my system.

I won't ever go off Wellbutrin Drew. If there's one med I've come to love, it's that one. I can battle anxiety and my negative thoughts much easier. I'm so grateful my doctor put me on it.

[spunkysmum]

Interesting question. Not sure how to answer it. But I guess when you start to notice more and more moments where you feel OK or at peace or the absence of emotional pain. When I had depression I used to wake up in the morning and wait for a minute to see if the boulder was still sitting on my chest. When I waited for it it usually was. When it stopped being there I'm not sure I made it a point to notice. It was a gradual process for me. Knowledge helped, as it does with most things. Knowing what was wrong and that as messed up as I was, I was "normal" in a way because the symptoms fit.

[hoolio]

Originally Posted by anonymouslyadd

I won't ever go off Wellbutrin Drew. If there's one med I've come to love, it's that one. I can battle anxiety and my negative thoughts much easier. I'm so grateful my doctor put me on it.

I have come to the realization that I am in the same position when it comes to depression meds...

I suffer from Dysthymia (have since probably about 10-11 or so) in addition to periods of 'clinical' depression, which are sometimes situational and sometimes not (so basically double-depression when that occurs).

Medication and counselling keep the double-depression at bay for the most part (which is why I don't think I will ever be off of it... I don't think I could make it through another really bad depressive state!).

But even on meds (and I have been or several different ones) the chronic low grade depression (dysthymia) is just sort of always 'there'. Sometimes it is better than other times, but even at times where it seems 'better' its ghost still lingers there (kind of like someone mentioned about being 'haunted' by the past depression). It may lurk in the shadows sometimes... but it never really totally goes away for me...

Being diagnosed and medicated/treated for ADHD (I was only diagnosed in the last year or so and I am turning 34 this year) has helped some as well but I think that it has been such a chronic problem for me that I will never know what it is like to be completely 100% free of it... the emotional/psychological scars from it will always be there...

[mjpm]

I've been depressed since I was a little kid, I just didn't know it. I thought about killing myself when I was about six or seven. I go through phases where I'm alright and every once in a while something just clicks and I go into a deep depression. I don't think I'm bipolar, but I've only felt truly, internally happy on very few occasions and it seems as though every time I do, it falls just as quick into depression.

I don't know if you ever recover, but there are ways to help manage and ways to combat depression. Talking, for me, had helped wonders. I've written speeches and talked to some special friends about it. I still haven't had the courage to talk to my family, but I feel if I did, they would blame themselves and the guilt would lead me into a deep depression. I can't take making them feel bad about themselves.

[Retromancer]

When I set off to put my head in the oven -- and end up cleaning it.

Originally Posted by picard

when do you guys know you recovered from depression ?

[hanikamiya]

It took me several years to go from a stage in which I just wanted to die and/or howl at the moon (possibly both at once), to feeling 'normal' most of the time. Between that crazy depression and the later stable, normal stage I had dysthymia with bouts of depression first, and then with stretches of feeling okay later.
Getting out of there was really hard work, and I often only noticed after weeks or months that I hadn't had a really bad day in quite some time, and that on average the days were actually pretty bearable.

For coming out of depression, I have no idea how I actually managed it, other than that I really wanted to stop feeling so bad and numb, and that I had decided I would not allow myself to commit suicide while feeling like that, because it was not the 'real me' (and anyways I felt defiant after unsuccessful suicide attempts); and that my worst moments were linked to PMS, which means once I figured that out I learnt to endure, and trust that sooner or later it would become better - as long as I didn't allow myself to guilt trip myself for the bad days. (Okay I think I do know how I managed.)

Getting out of dysthymia was linked to training myself to not think about how I feel when I'm low, and to try and think more about how I feel when I feel neutral or good. Emotions and moods are a kind of matrix for memories, and when you're on the 'bad' or 'good' matrix, it is difficult to access memories that are not linked to the same mood. That was more or less what held me trapped in dysthymia. That and the hypothyreosis.
Many people with depression actually try to switch into the 'good' matrix by recalling good memories or doing things they used to love, but when their mood is really low - fluctuating not between low and neutral but between low and lower, they can't relive those joyful feelings and often they feel more helpless, flawed and ungrateful. It's important to accept the low affect and bad mood and not tear oneself apart over any perceived 'failure'.