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?

  • Maeve@kbin.earth
    0·
    4 days ago

    I feel like these are grim times and naturally most of us are going to be affected. Probably reassessment of medication can help, but I would caution there’s a limit to what medication can actually do. I’m sorry to hear you’re going through this, and tbh suspect this may have a lot to do with long stretches of a straight line on my mentioned x-y axes. And while stability is desirable, that doesn’t mean real events don’t affect where that line floats on the y axis.

    • anon6789@lemmy.world
      0·
      4 days ago

      Yeah, it may be more than coincidence since it started this year. I try not to worry about things beyond my control, but it’s been hard to look anywhere lately and not see something dark.

      I’ve had to learn how to deal with things in healthy ways since “getting better” and this may just be the hardest situation I’ve come on since then.

      Some of my stressors should be going away soon, and I have a few vacations coming so perhaps relief is near.