I’ve been dealing with depression (and anxiety) for well over 5 years now. I’ve tried so many different medications and treatments with no apparent success. Inevitably, in the course of the treatment, the doctor will ask if I’m starting to feel better to see if it’s worth continuing the treatment, up the dose, or swap to something else. And… I never know what to say. If it’s not going to get dramatically better all of a sudden, I don’t really know how to recognize any incremental progress if it’s happening at all and without being able to do that, I might be passing on treatments that could have helped if I gave it more time.
So if you’ve been in this situation, how did you recognize progress? To the extent that you can put it into words, what did it feel like to slowly get better as you were treated?
My depression was lifted dramatically, but not by anti-depressants (I had a hormone issue), so for me a bunch of symptoms went away at once and in it’s place I felt normal, effortlessly happy more frequently, and life just wasn’t as hard - I felt more motivated to do things, I didn’t need weeks of recovery after a stressful event, I didn’t need a weekend of social isolation after going to a grocery store. I had less of a tendency to need or crave simple rewards, like food or video games. Food became less necessary as a reward, and my behavior towards food became less obsessive.
There was a sense of feeling so “normal” and like what you imagine other people must feel like. You start to understand why your colleagues and others in your life don’t seem to be struggling so much, how they can fit so much into their lives.
I didn’t really understand depression until these experiences - I thought what I experienced was just normal up until then, and blamed myself for being lazy or grumpy or ill-tempered by nature, rather than suffering from depression and other issues.
I have taken buproprion before, and it made me have mood swings where I became manic and filled with energy, then inevitably I would crash and feel awful. It also gave me TMJ from all the extra grinding my teeth were doing, so I had to quit (so painful!).