So depression is a pretty bloody annoying thing. I've been dealing with all the crap associated pre-treatment for a while, and it's pretty painful. You don't really notice until it becomes such a problem you're not even sure that anything can be done about it.
After that? Medicine. There's a lot of arguments against medicating problems, but I've studied psychology for 5 years now and think I can make an informed decision about myself. Would I wish it on everyone? No, but for me it's been the right path.
After that I've managed to settle back into mostly-normal. The first week of drugs was the worst, they were doing nothing except perhaps making it worse. Second week was about the same, but the third week was different.... It doesn't really happen directly, you don't notice "hey it's not all crap any more", it just stops being crap.... then after a while you notice everything isn't crap, but it's not quite done.
You see, the medicine has set dosages for different "levels" of depression. I'm on about mid-way, but it goes from 5mg through to "lots" of mg. Unless you're on "ALL THE MG" then you'll have days that are better, and days that are worse. I've been struggling through a week that's gotten worse that culminated in a day that was truly dreadful. The medicine did help, I'd hate to think what I'd have been like without it acting a a buffer, but after so long being fine it hits you harder than ever.
The worst part is that on some level you know what's happening, but you can't break out of it. You can see that it's all going south, and that it's going to have a negative impact on all involved, but you can't just decide to stop.
Still, onwards and upwards? I'm on month 5 now and my doctor is suggesting that I could try to lower the dose. As I'm going to have a very hard term next year I've decided to keep it steady so that it won't interfere with my studies, and hopefully after that I'll be able to reduce it and perhaps even beat it.
I'm not entirely sure why I wrote this, but it's cathartic to write a load of swirling thoughts down, and even if you're just narrating to yourself it helps to order it and make sense of the whole thing.
~Longeye~
