But you smoke herbs, right? Isn't that a sort of self medication?

I put down that I take nothing. But I do drink a little.

Mostly I'm thankful that my chemistry is pretty well balanced. I have ups and downs like anyone else, but they are very moderate. A good friend got post-partum depression after her first kid. That really opened my eyes to how depression is a very real thing that can strike anyone. She was always so happy and normal, and then one day she wasn't. Makes me thankful.

Sometimes I am so jealous of my husband for being 'normal'. At one point about a year ago I was asking him if he ever thought of killing himself, and he looked at me with a horrified look and said honestly, he had never thought of it. I knew then I needed to get to the doc. Stupid brain.

not so much anymore, really. i did yesterday, and it was the first time in ?4 months?

I have a wee dram of rum now and then. ;)

BUT...that's not to manage my moods or anything. purely recreational.

On a side note, never ever do this if you catch strep throat. The complications of allowing it to progress are... not good.

I take two different SSRIs. They are what keep me from driving over a cliff. Doc says I'm chronic. I have tried just about them all over the past 13 years or so, and I think I have a good combo now. I've tried to wean off, only finding I am back where I started. It's chemical. I could have benefited from help as far back as college.

It isn't less of 'me' it's just less of the destructive depressed side of me. I'm still the silly person, the introspective person, the deep person, the inquisitive person, the thoughtful person...I just don't feel the need to go play on the highway anymore. :)

Blue moods are normal; real depression is not. To know that you can choose to cope without meds means you are not truly clinically depressed. The truly depressed have absolutely no control over the matter. You can't pull yourself up by the bootstraps. You can't take weeks of work off at a time because you can't get out of bed. SSRIs are quite simple in the way they work, really, and it makes sense.

I'm still me. No question.

depression is a medical illness. the brain doesnt produce enough of the chemical SEROTONIN which defines mood. I get S.A.D. (seasonal affected disorder) almost every winter and managed to stay off the Prozac for 3 seasons in a row, but this year I've needed them, so I'm back on them until March.
Anti Depressants are very useful for people who need them, but Doctors rarely tell patients how to use them properly. They are not a magic wand, issues still need to be addressed and they should be used time - limited. After 2 years or so they have the opposite effect and can make people feel more depressed than when they first went on them.
Weaning off them should be slow: allow 6 weeks to come off and expect a few dips in serotonin levels until the neurotransmitters stabilise again.
This episode was getting bad for me, and i know the signs - de-motivated, loss of appeteite, wanting to sleep all the time, irritable, pessimistic, staring into thin air, on the verge of tears for ne apparent reason and so on.
It's clinically proven that exercise helps to stimulate serotonin.

it seems to me that sometimes, when you give something an acronym, or name a 'disorder', you create it. A thing like SAD (not to pick on you, phil...and i don't know the first thing about it, really) sounds self fulfilling to me. I mean....it almost seems like they come up with the disorder to fit the acronym.

I get DRUNK: Drink Rum Until Naked and Kissy

I've been on zoloft for depression a number of times in my life. Right now, I'm not, although there are days when I'd like the "get up and GO!" that it gives me. My depression is not of the suicidal stripe. I'm not the kind of guy who walks out of the middle of a movie, no matter how shitty it gets, I always wonder what will happen next.

My depression manifests itself more as a complete lack of starting ability. Not lack of motivation; I feel like doing things it's just that I get overwhelmed by the enormity of getting dressed and all the effort that goes into that. Sometimes when it's been bad, I had to make the choice between putting gas in the car or going to the post office because doing both was more than I could manage.

Despite all the crap w/ the house this year, I've managed to keep moving, albeit slower. I can tell there is an episode waiting in the wings, I'm managing it by getting plenty of rest.

And drinking a half to 2/3 a bottle of red wine a night. Love me some antioxidants.

To answer the question, no, I've never been on psychotherapeutic drugs. I am on a variety of other medications (stimvistatin, metformin, one or two others) in order to try to stay alive and healthy.
I've definitely had "low" periods in my life, some that possibly did qualify as depression. I understand that that's not unusual. I am not really at one of those points now, though.

A question I'd like to ask -- is it possible to be non-depressed (i.e. having none of the classical physical symptoms of depression) and yet wonder why you bother getting up in the morning, and what would be lost if you... just gave up? The only reason I take the aforementioned drugs is because there are worse things than actually dying (renal failure, heart attack, stroke, blindness, etc.) I'm actually rather neutral on the dying part. If someone told me I had an incurable disease and I was going to die in six months, I don't think I would bother to fight it.

I don't take any mind altering drugs. I take thyroid medicine, but that is about it.

But I always wonder about the fact that I get depressed sometimes. I don’t know if I am actually depressed… but it feels that way.
The thing about it is that it can’t be a chemical imbalance because I only get that way when things in my life are going down the tube. I always feel like I have good reason to feel that way, and therefore can’t shake it. If things get better at all then I feel better. But sometimes it takes a long time for things to improve. Or if they do improve, something else happens so I am back to square one. I don’t know if anyone else has this happen to them but it sucks for me. The last 6 or 7 months have been really bad though. I am still trying to fight it. I just don’t think pills will help since there is too much going on that saddens me.

Wow Pie... I think you just summed up what I was trying to say.

Could be raising of the Bodhi mind ?

I dont take anything.

Mersyndol occasionally to assist with sleeping, but its over the counter....Naphrogesic for girlie probs...and Paracetamol for headaches.

I've often wondered whether I need to be on something, but I think I have reconciled with the fact that happiness is *fleeting*, not something that I should be expecting to be continuous.

The things that get me down are really just *life* and I just get the fuck over myself these days (or try at least).

I guess I'm with you, Pie and Iggy, not depressed as such, but... I dunno, just... nihilistic? Resigned? Something like that.

Yeah, I'm familiar with that feeling too.