My recovery from treatment-resistant depression

[SvetlanaM]

Hi! Here's my recovery story, i hope it will be helpful to somebody. I had depression since i was 16, it started slow, but things got worse and worse with time, at 19 i was suicidal, unable to study, unable to function in general, i just wanted to die. I was hospitalized many times, i tried countless number of medications, but nothing seemed to work. At some point i quit my job, because i couldn't do it anymore, i stopped talking to my friends, and i spent every waking moment researching alternative treatments and i tried all of them, and i found some, that worked. I changed my diet, out of all the supplements that I tried only omega-3 fatty acids and NAC turned out to be really helpful. I also started meditating daily and running 6 times a week. I also did light therapy with a lightbox. After about 8 months of this regimen I was in full remission. It was unbelievable, it felt amazing. I go into more detail about all the natural treatments that helped me on my youtube channel “Svetlana Minina”. The remission lasted for 3 years. After 3 years I had a severe respiratory infection, it took a long time to recover from it, and after I finally recovered I realized, that my depression is back. It wasn’t as bad as before, but it was still pretty bad. Things, that helped me before didn’t seem to work this time. I was in and out of psych ward again, medications and TMS didn’t work, so I decided to try ECT. I did 18 procedures. It helped a little bit, it didn’t make me feel much better, but I feel like it helped to overcome the resistance to treatment. After that I returned to all the natural treatments, that I did before, and added some new ones, and slowly, but steadily I’m getting better. I’m 90% recovered now, my mood is fine, I still have some residual fatigue and anhedonia, but it’s not too bad. I hope to be in full remission someday.
Thanks for reading.

[Princess Ninja]

That's great. I have a similar experience with anxiety. I didn't sufficiently respond to the medical therapy and my complaints increased from time to time and triggered by some stress factors. However, meditation helped me a lot. If I didn't start meditating, I would go crazy. So don't underestimate the power of alterntive therapies.

[useranonymous]

I just want to say I think your doing amazing to recover yourself again. I think your a very strong person. I've always had bad anxiety and I was always kind of a hermit other than when I went to work the 40-50 hours I used to do. Then I had my first child and she helped me a great deal with it as I had to go out and show her the world and other children. I did this through children's groups, swimming, softplay, walking, playgrounds etc.

Then lockdown happened and I went right back to square one and cried most days from feeling like a bad mum and anxious again.

Now that things are opening up again I'm getting out there again and slowly getting a routine back and tackling my anxiety again. Although I still hate going into a packed out room when I don't know anybody, but I have learnt to deal with bring around others by just starting a conversation with anybody and I've come to realise I like having other people around.